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LITTLE LADY

BIG HOUSE

JACK LONDON
AL2384.5.19.11

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THE LITTLE LADY OF THE
BIG HOUSE
 The
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS
ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO

MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED

LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.

TORONTO
THE LITTLE LADY OF
THE BIG HOUSE

BY

JACK LONDON
Author of "The Valley of the Moon ," "The Star
Rover ," "The Sea Wolf," Etc.

New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1916
All rights reserved
AL 2384.5.19.11
D COLL
VAR E
WAR GE

JUN 3 1918
LIBRARY

Five money
Copyright, 1915
By JACK LONDON

Copyright, 1916
By JACK LONDON
Setup and electrotyped. Published April, 1916

Copyrighted in Great Britain

THE LITTLE LADY OF THE
BIG HOUSE
 THE LITTLE LADY OF THE
BIG HOUSE

CHAPTER I

E awoke in the dark. His awakening was

H simple, easy, without movement save for
the eyes that opened and made him aware
of darkness. Unlike most, who must feel and grope
and listen to, and contact with, the world about them,
he knew himself on the moment of awakening, in-
stantly identifying himself in time and place and per-
sonality. After the lapsed hours of sleep he took
up, without effort, the interrupted tale of his days.
He knew himself to be Dick Forrest, the master of
broad acres, who had fallen asleep hours before
after drowsily putting a match between the pages of
" Road Town " and pressing off the electric reading
lamp.
Near at hand there was the ripple and gurgle of
some sleepy fountain. From far off, so faint and
far that only a keen ear could catch, he heard a
sound that made him smile with pleasure. He knew
it for the distant, throaty bawl of King Polo — King
Polo, his champion Short Horn bull, thrice Grand
Champion also of all bulls at Sacramento at the Cali-
fornia State Fairs. The smile was slow in easing
I
2 THE LITTLE LADY

from Dick Forrest's face, for he dwelt a moment on

the new triumphs he had destined that year for King
Polo on the Eastern livestock circuits. He would
show them that a bull, California born and finished,
could compete with the cream of bulls corn-fed in
Iowa or imported overseas from the immemorial
home of Short Horns.
Not until the smile faded, which was a matter of
seconds, did he reach out in the dark and press the
first of a row of buttons. There were three rows of
such buttons. The concealed lighting that spilled
from the huge bowl under the ceiling revealed a
sleeping-porch, three sides of which were fine-meshed
copper screen. The fourth side was the house wall,
solid concrete, through which French windows gave
access .

He pressed the second button in the row and the

bright light concentered at a particular place on the
concrete wall, illuminating, in a row, a clock, a
barometer, and centigrade and Fahrenheit thermom-
eters. Almost in a sweep of glance he read the mes-
sages of the dials: time 4:30; air pressure, 29:80,
which was normal at that altitude and season; and
temperature, Fahrenheit, 36°. With another press,
the gauges of time and heat and air were sent back
into the darkness .
A third button turned on his reading lamp, so
arranged that the light fell from above and behind
without shining into his eyes. The first button
turned off the concealed lighting overhead. He
reached a mass of proofsheets from the reading
stand, and, pencil in hand, lighting a cigarette, he
began to correct.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 3

The place was clearly the sleeping quarters of a

man who worked. Efficiency was its key note,
though comfort, not altogether Spartan, was also
manifest. The bed was of gray enameled iron to
tone with the concrete wall. Across the foot of the
bed, an extra coverlet, hung a gray robe of wolfskins
with every tail a-dangle. On the floor, where rested
a pair of slippers, was spread a thick-coated skin of
mountain goat.
Heaped orderly with books, magazines and scrib-
ble-pads, there was room on the big reading stand
for matches, cigarettes, an ash-tray, and a thermos
bottle. A phonograph, for purposes of dictation,
stood on a hinged and swinging bracket. On the
wall, under the barometer and thermometers, from
a round wooden frame laughed the face of a girl.
On the wall, between the rows of buttons and a
switchboard, from an open holster, loosely projected
the butt of a .44 Colt's automatic.
At six o'clock, sharp, after gray light had begun
to filter through the wire netting, Dick Forrest, with-
out raising his eyes from the proofsheets, reached
out his right hand and pressed a button in the second
row. Five minutes later a soft-slippered Chinese
emerged on the sleeping-porch. In his hands he bore
a small tray of burnished copper on which rested a
cup and saucer, a tiny coffee pot of silver, and a cor-
respondingly tiny silver cream pitcher.
" Good morning, Oh My," was Dick Forrest's
greeting, and his eyes smiled and his lips smiled as he
uttered it.
" Good morning, Master," Oh My returned, as
he busied himself with making room on the reading
 4 THE LITTLE LADY

stand for the tray and with pouring the coffee and
cream .

This done, without waiting further orders, noting

that his master was already sipping coffee with one
hand while he made a correction on the proof with
い
the other, Oh My picked up a rosy, filmy, lacy bou-
doir cap from the floor and departed. His exit was
noiseless. He ebbed away like a shadow through
the open French windows.
At six-thirty, sharp to the minute, he was back with
a larger tray. Dick Forrest put away the proofs,
reached for a book entitled " Commercial Breeding
of Frogs, " and prepared to eat. The breakfast was
simple yet fairly substantial—more coffee, a half
grape-fruit, two soft-boiled eggs made ready in a glass
with a dab of butter and piping hot, and a sliver of
bacon, not over-cooked, that he knew was of his own
raising and curing.
By this time the sunshine was pouring in through
the screening and across the bed. On the outside of
the wire screen clung a number of house-flies, early-
hatched for the season and numb with the night's
cold. As Forrest ate he watched the hunting of the
meat-eating yellow-jackets. Sturdy, more frost-re-
sistant than bees, they were already on the wing and
preying on the benumbed flies. Despite the rowdy
noise of their flight, these yellow hunters of the air,
with rarely ever a miss, pounced on their helpless
victims and sailed away with them. The last fly was
gone ere Forrest had sipped his last sip of coffee,
marked " Commercial Breeding of Frogs " with a
match, and taken up his proofsheets .
After a time, the liquid-mellow cry of the meadow
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 5

lark, first vocal for the day, caused him to desist.

He looked at the clock. It marked seven. He set
aside the proofs and began a series of conversations
by means of the switchboard, which he manipulated
with a practiced hand.
" Hello, Oh Joy," was his first talk. " Is Mr.
Thayer up ? ..
Very well. Don't disturb him.
I don't think he'll breakfast in bed, but find out.
...

That's right, and show him how to work the hot

water. Maybe he doesn't know ...
Yes, that's
right. Plan for one more boy as soon as you can
get him. There's always a crowd when the good
weather comes on. Sure. Use your judgment.
...

Good-by."
" Mr. Hanley? ...
Yes," was his second con-
versation, over another switch. " I've been thinking
about the dam on the Buckeye. I want the figures
on the gravel-haul and on the rock-crushing. ...

Yes, that's it. I imagine that the gravel-haul will

cost anywhere between six and ten cents a yard more
than the crushed rock. That last pitch of hill is
what eats up the gravel-teams. Work out the fig-
ures. ... No, we won't be able to start for a fort-
night. ...
Yes, yes; the new tractors, if they ever
deliver, will release the horses from the plowing, but
they'll have to go back for the checking. ...
No,
you'll have to see Mr. Everan about that. Good-
by."
And his third call:
" Mr. Dawson ? Ha l Ha l Thirty-six on my
porch right now. It must be white with frost down
on the levels. But it's most likely the last this
year. ... Yes, they swore the tractors would be de-
 6 THE LITTLE LADY

livered two days ago. Call up the station agent.

.. By the way, you catch Hanley for me. I for-
got to tell him to start the ' rat-catchers ' out with
the second instalment of fly-traps. Yes, pronto.
There were a couple of dozen roosting on my screen
this morning. • Yes. Good-by."
At this stage, Forrest slid out of bed in his pa-
jamas, slipped his feet into the slippers, and strode
through the French windows to the bath, already
drawn by Oh My. A dozen minutes afterward,
shaved as well, he was back in bed, reading his frog
book while Oh My, punctual to the minute, massaged
his legs .
! They were the well-formed legs of a well-built,
five-foot-ten man who weighed a hundred and eighty
pounds. Further, they told a tale of the man. The
left thigh was marred by a scar ten inches in length.
Across the left ankle, from instep to heel, were scat-
tered half a dozen scars the size of half-dollars .
When Oh My prodded and pulled the left knee a
shade too severely, Forrest was guilty of a wince.
The right shin war colored with several dark scars,
while a big scar, just under the knee, was a positive
dent in the bone. Midway between knee and groin
was the mark of an ancient three-inch gash, curiously
dotted with the minute scars of stitches.
A sudden, joyous nicker from without put the
match between the pages of the frog book, and, while
Oh My proceeded partly to dress his master in bed,
including socks and shoes, the master, twisting partly
on his side, stared out in the direction of the nicker.
Down the road, through the swaying purple of the
early lilacs, ridden by a picturesque cowboy, paced
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 7

a great horse, glinting ruddy in the morning sun-

gold, flinging free the snowy foam of his mighty fet-
locks, his noble crest tossing, his eyes roving afield,
the trumpet of his love-call echoing through the
springing land.
Dick Forrest was smitten at the same instant with
joy and anxiety—joy in the glorious beast pacing
down between the lilac hedges; anxiety in that the
stallion might have awakened the girl who laughed
from the round wooden frame on his wall. He
glanced quickly across the two-hundred-foot court to
the long, shadowy jut of her wing of the house.
The shades of her sleeping-porch were down. They
didnot stir. Again the stallion nickered, and all that
moved was a flock of wild canaries, upspringing from
the flowers and shrubs of the court, rising like a
green-gold spray of light flung from the sunrise.
He watched the stallion out of sight through the
lilacs, seeing visions of fair Shire colts mighty of
bone and frame and free from blemish, then turned,
as ever he turned to the immediate thing, and spoke
e
to his body servant.
" How's that last boy, Oh My ? Showing up ? "
"Him pretty good boy, I think," was the answer.
" Him young boy. Everything new. Pretty slow.
All the same bime by him show up good."
" Why ? What makes you think so ? "
" I call him three, four morning now. Him sleep
like baby. Him wake up smiling just like you.
That very good."
" Do I wake up smiling? " Forrest queried.
Oh My nodded his head violently.
"Many times, many years, I call you. Always
8 THE LITTLE LADY

your eyes open, your eyes smile, your mouth smile,

your face smile, you smile all over, just like that,
right away quick. That very good. A man wake
up that way got plenty good sense. I know. This
new boy like that. Bime by, pretty soon, he make
fine boy. You see . His name Chow Gam. What
name you call him this place ? "
Dick Forrest meditated.
" What names have we already ? " he asked.
" Oh Joy, Ah Well, Ah Me, and me; I am Oh
My, " the Chinese rattled off. " Oh Joy him say
call new boy -"
He hesitated and stared at his master with a chal-
lenging glint of eye. Forrest nodded.
" Oh Joy him say call new boy ' Oh Hell.' "
" Oh ho ! " Forrest laughed in appreciation.
" Oh Joy is a josher. A good name, but it won't
do. There is the Missus. We've got to think an-
other name."
" Oh Ho, that very good name."
Forrest's exclamation was still ringing in his con-
sciousness so that he recognized the source of Oh
My's inspiration.
" Very well. The boy's name is Oh Ho."
Oh My lowered his head, ebbed swiftly through
the French windows, and as swiftly returned with the
rest of Forrest's clothes-gear, helping him into under-
shirt and shirt, tossing a tie around his neck for him
to knot, and, kneeling, putting on his leggings and
spurs. A Baden Powell hat and a quirt completed
his appareling— the quirt, Indian-braided of raw-
hide, with ten ounces of lead braided into the butt
that hung from his wrist on a loop of leather.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 9

But Forrest was not yet free. Oh My handed

him several letters, with the explanation that they
had come up from the station the previous night after
Forrest had gone to bed. He tore the right-hand
ends across and glanced at the contents of all but
one with speed. The latter he dwelt upon for a mo-
ment, with an irritated indrawing of brows, then
swung out the phonograph from the wall, pressed
the button that made the cylinder revolve, and swiftly
dictated, without ever a pause for word or idea :
"In reply to yours of March 14, 1914, I am indeed sorry
to learn that you were hit with hog cholera. I am equally
sorry that you have seen fit to charge me with the respon-
sibility. And just as equally am I sorry that the boar we
sent you is dead.
" I can only assure you that we are quite clear of cholera
here, and that we have been clear of cholera for eight years,
with the exception of two Eastern importations, the last two
years ago, both of which, according to our custom, were
segregated on arrival and were destroyed before the con-
tagion could be communicated to our herds .
" I feel that I must inform you that in neither case did
I charge the sellers with having sent me diseased stock. On
the contrary, as you should know, the incubation of hog
cholera being nine days, I consulted the shipping dates of
the animals and knew that they had been healthy when
shipped.
"Has it ever entered your mind that the railroads are
largely responsible for the spread of cholera ? Did you ever
hear of a railroad fumigating or disinfecting a car which
had carried cholera ? Consult the dates : First, of ship-
ment by me; second, of receipt of the boar by you ; and,
third, of appearance of symptoms in the boar. As you say,
because of washouts, the boar was five days on the way.
Not until the seventh day after you receipted for same did
the first symptoms appear. That makes twelve days after
it left my hands.
10 THE LITTLE LADY

"No; I must disagree with you. I am not responsible

for the disaster that overtook your herd. Furthermore,
doubly to assure you, write to the State Veterinary as to
whether or not my place is free of cholera.
" Very truly yours ..."
 CHAPTER II

HEN Forrest went through the French win-

W dows from his sleeping-porch, he crossed,
first, a comfortable dressing room, window-
divaned, many-lockered, with a generous fireplace,
out of which opened a bathroom ; and, second, a long
office room, wherein was all the paraphernalia of
business — desks, dictaphones, filing cabinets, book
cases, magazine files, and drawer-pigeonholes that
tiered to the low, beamed ceiling.
Midway in the office room, he pressed a button
and a series of book-freightened shelves swung on a
pivot, revealing a tiny spiral stairway of steel, which
he descended with care that his spurs might not catch,
the bookshelves swinging into place behind him.
At the foot of the stairway, a press on another
button pivoted more shelves of books and gave him
entrance into a long low room shelved with books
from floor to ceiling. He went directly to a case,
directly to a shelf, and unerringly laid his hand on
the book he sought. A minute he ran the pages,
found the passage he was after, nodded his head to
himself in vindication, and replaced the book.
Adoor gave way to a pergola of square concrete
columns spanned with redwood logs and interlaced
with smaller trunks of redwood, all rough and
crinkled velvet with the ruddy purple of the bark.
II
 12 THE LITTLE LADY

It was evident, since he had to skirt several hun-

dred feet of concrete walls of wandering house, that
he had not taken the short way out. Under wide-
spreading ancient oaks, where the long hitching-rails ,
bark-chewed, and the hoof-beaten gravel showed the
stamping place of many horses, he found a pale-
golden, almost tan-golden, sorrel mare. Her well-
groomed spring coat was alive and flaming in the
morning sun that slanted straight under the edge of
the roof of trees . She was herself alive and flaming.
She was built like a stallion, and down her backbone
ran a narrow dark strip of hair that advertised an
ancestry of many range mustangs.
" How's the Man-Eater this morning ? " he
queried, as he unsnapped the tie-rope from her
throat.
She laid back the tiniest ears that ever a horse
possessed — ears that told of some thoroughbred's
wild loves with wild mares among the hills — and
snapped at Forrest with wicked teeth and wicked-
gleaming eyes.
She sidled and attempted to rear as he swung into
the saddle, and, sidling and attempting to rear, she
went off down the graveled road. And rear she
would have, had it not been for the martingale that
held her head down and that, as well, saved the
rider's nose from her angry-tossing head.
So used was he to the mare, that he was scarcely
aware of her antics. Automatically, with slightest
:
touch of rein against arched neck, or with tickle of
spur or press of knee, he kept the mare to the way
he willed. Once, as she whirled and danced, he
caught a glimpse of the Big House. Big it was in
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 13

all seeming, and yet, such was the vagrant nature of

it, it was not so big as it seemed. Eight hundred
feet across the front face, it stretched. But much of
this eight hundred feet was composed of mere corri-
dors, concrete-walled, tile-roofed, that connected and
assembled the various parts of the building. There
were patios and pergolas in proportion, and all the
walls, with their many right-angled juts and reces-
sions, arose out of a bed of greenery and bloom.
Spanish in character, the architecture of the Big
House was not of the California-Spanish type which
had been introduced by way of Mexico a hundred
years before, and which had been modified by modern
architects to the California-Spanish architecture of
the day. Hispano-Moresque more technically classi-
fied the Big House in all its hybridness, although
there were experts who heatedly quarreled with the
term.
Spaciousness without austerity and beauty without
ostentation were the fundamental impressions the
Big House gave. Its lines, long and horizontal,
broken only by lines that were vertical and by the
lines of juts and recesses that were always right-
angled, were as chaste as those of a monastery. The
irregular roof-line, however, relieved the hint of
monotony.
Low and rambling, without being squat, the square
upthrusts of towers and of towers over-topping
towers gave just proportion of height without being
sky-aspiring. The sense of the Big House was
solidarity. It defied earthquakes. It was planted
for a thousand years. The honest concrete was
overlaid by a cream-stucco of honest cement. Again,
14 THE LITTLE LADY

this very sameness of color might have proved

monotonous to the eye had it not been saved by the
many flat roofs of warm-red Spanish tile.
In that one sweeping glance while the mare whirled
unduly, Dick Forrest's eyes, embracing all of the Big
House, centered for a quick solicitous instant on the
great wing across the two-hundred-foot court, where,
under climbing groups of towers, red-snooded in the
morning sun, the drawn shades of the sleeping-porch
tokened that his lady still slept.
About him, for three quadrants of the circle of the
world, arose low-rolling hills, smooth, fenced,
cropped, and pastured, that melted into higher hills
and steeper wooded slopes that merged upward,
steeper, into mighty mountains. The fourth quad-
rant was unbounded by mountain walls and hills. It
faded away, descending easily to vast far flat-lands,
which, despite the clear brittle air of frost, were too
vast and far to scan across.
The mare under him snorted. His knees tight-
ened as he straightened her into the road and forced
her to one side. Down upon him, with a pattering
of feet on the gravel, flowed a river of white shim-
mering silk. He knew it at sight for his prize herd
of Angora goats, each with a pedigree, each with a
history. There had to be a near two hundred of
them, and he knew, according to the rigorous selec-
tion he commanded, not having been clipped in the
fall, that the shining mohair draping the sides of the
least of them, as fine as any human new-born baby's
hair and finer, as white as any human albino's thatch
and whiter, was longer than the twelve-inch staple,
and that the mohair of the best of them would dye
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 15

any color into twenty-inch switches for women's heads

and sell at prices unreasonable and profound.
The beauty of the sight held him as well. The
roadway had become a flowing ribbon of silk,
gemmed with yellow cat-like eyes that floated past
wary and curious in their regard for him and his
nervous horse. Two Basque herders brought up the
rear. They were short, broad, swarthy men, black-
eyed, vivid-faced, contemplative and philosophic of
expression. They pulled off their hats and ducked
their heads to him. Forrest lifted his right hand,
the quirt dangling from wrist, the straight forefinger
touching the rim of his Baden Powell in semi-military
salute.
The mare, prancing and whirling again, he held
herwith a touch of rein and threat of spur, and gazed
after the four-footed silk that filled the road with
shimmering white. He knew the significance of their
presence. The time for kidding was approaching
and they were being brought down from their brush-
pastures to the brood-pens and shelters for jealous
care and generous feed through the period of in-
crease. And as he gazed, in his mind, comparing,
was a vision of all the best of Turkish and South
African mohair he had ever seen, and his flock bore
the comparison well. It looked good. It looked
very good.
He rode on. From all about arose the clacking
whir of manure-spreaders. In the distance, on the
low, easy-sloping hills, he saw team after team, and
many teams, three to a team abreast, what he knew
were his Shire mares, drawing the plows back and
forth across, contour-plowing, turning the green sod
16 THE LITTLE LADY

of the hillsides to the rich dark brown of humus-filled

earth so organic and friable that it would almost
melt by gravity into fine-particled seed-bed. That
was for the corn- and sorghum-planting for his silos.
Other hill-slopes, in the due course of his rotation,
were knee-high in barley ; and still other slopes were
showing the good green of burr clover and Canada
pea.
Everywhere about him, large fields and small were
arranged in a system of accessibility and workability
that would have warmed the heart of the most metic-
ulous efficiency-expert. Every fence was hog-tight
and bull-proof, and no weeds grew in the shelters of
the fences. Many of the level fields were in alfalfa .
Others, following the rotations, bore crops planted
the previous fall, or were in preparation for the
spring-planting. Still others, close to the brood
barns and pens, were being grazed by rotund Shrop-
shire and French-Merino ewes, or were being hogged
off by white Gargantuan brood-sows that brought a
flash of pleasure in his eyes as he rode past and
gazed.
He rode through what was almost a village, save
that there were neither shops nor hotels. The
houses were bungalows, substantial, pleasing to the
eye, each set in the midst of gardens where stouter
blooms, including roses, were out and smiling at the
threat of late frost. Children were already astir,
laughing and playing among the flowers or being
called in to breakfast by their mothers .
Beyond, beginning at a half-mile distant to circle
the Big House, he passed a row of shops. He
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 17

paused at the first and glanced in. One smith was

working at a forge. A second smith, a shoe fresh-
nailed on the fore-foot of an elderly Shire mare that
would disturb the scales at eighteen hundred weight,
was rasping down the outer wall of the hoof to
smooth with the toe of the shoe. Forrest saw,
saluted, rode on, and, a hundred feet away, paused
and scribbled a memorandum in the notebook he drew
from his hip-pocket.
He passed other shops — a paint-shop, a wagon-
shop, a plumbing shop, a carpenter-shop. While he
glanced at the last, a hybrid machine, half-auto, half-
truck, passed him at speed and took the main road
for the railroad station eight miles away. He knew
it for the morning butter-truck freighting from the
separator house the daily output of the dairy.
The Big House was the hub of the ranch organiza-
tion. Half a mile from it, it was encircled by the
various ranch centers. Dick Forrest, saluting con-
tinually his people, passed at a gallop the dairy
center, which was almost a sea of buildings with bat-
teries of silos and with litter carriers emerging on
overhead tracks and automatically dumping into wait-
ing manure-spreaders. Several times, business-look-
ing men, college-marked, astride horses or driving
carts, stopped him and conferred with him. They
were foremen, heads of departments, and they were
as brief and to the point as was he. The last of
them, astride a Palomina three-year-old that was as
graceful and wild as a half-broken Arab, was for
riding by with a bare salute, but was stopped by his
employer.
18 THE LITTLE LADY

" Good morning, Mr. Hennessy, and how soon

will she be ready for Mrs. Forrest ? " Dick Forrest
asked.
" I'd like another week," was Hennessy's answer,
" She's well broke now, just the way Mrs. Forrest
wanted, but she's over-strung and sensitive and I'd
like the week more to set her in her ways ."
Forrest nodded concurrence, and Hennessy, who
was the veterinary, went on :
" There are two drivers in the alfalfa gang I'd
like to send down the hill."
" What's the matter with them ? "
" One, a new man, Hopkins, is an ex-soldier. He
may know government mules, but he doesn't know
Shires ."
Forrest nodded.
" The other has worked for us two years, but he's
drinking now, and he takes his hang-overs out on his
horses—"
" That's Smith, old-typeAmerican, smooth-shaven,
with a cast in his left eye ? " Forrest interrupted.
The veterinary nodded.
" I've been watching him," Forrest concluded.
" He was a good man at first, but he's slipped a cog
recently. Sure, send him down the hill. And send
that other fellow — Hopkins, you said ?— along
with him. By the way, Mr. Hennessy." As he
spoke, Forrest drew forth his pad book, tore off the
last note scribbled, and crumpled it in his hand.
" You've a new horse-shoer in the shop. How does
he strike you ? "
" He's too new to make up my mind yet."
" Well, send him down the hill along with the
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 19

other two. He can't take your orders. I observed

him just now fitting a shoe to old Alden Bessie by
rasping off half an inch of the toe of her hoof."
" He knew better."
" Send him down the hill," Forrest repeated, as he
tickled his champing mount with the slightest of spur-
tickles and shot her out along the road, sidling, head-
tossing, and attempting to rear.
Much he saw that pleased him. Once, he mur-
mured aloud, " A fat land, a fat land. " Divers
things he saw that did not please him and that won
a note in his scribble pad. Completing the circle
about the Big House and riding beyond the circle
half a mile to an isolated group of sheds and corrals,
he reached the objective of the ride: the hospital.
Herehe foundbut two young heifers being tested for
tuberculosis, and a magnificent Duroc Jersey boar in
magnificent condition. Weighing fully six hundred
pounds, its bright eyes, brisk movements, and sheen
of hair shouted out that there was nothing the mat-
ter with it. Nevertheless, according to the ranch
practice, being a fresh importation from Iowa, it
was undergoing the regular period of quarantine.
Burgess Premier was its name in the herd books of
the association, age two years, and it had cost For-
rest five hundred dollars laid down on the ranch .
Proceeding at a hand gallop along a road that was
one of the spokes radiating from the Big House hub,
Forrest overtook Crellin, his hog manager, and, in a
five-minute conference, outlined the next few months
of destiny of Burgess Premier, and learned that the
brood sow, Lady Isleton, the matron of all matrons
of the O. I. C.'s and blue-ribboner in all shows from
20 THE LITTLE LADY

Seattle to San Diego, was safely farrowed of eleven.

Crellin explained that he had sat up half the night
with her and was then bound home for bath and
breakfast.
" I hear your oldest daughter has finished high
school and wants to enter Stanford," Forrest said,
curbing the mare just as he had half-signaled depart-
ure at a gallop.
Crellin, a young man of thirty-five, with the ma-
turity of a long-time father stamped upon him along
with the marks of college and the youthfulness of a
man used to the open air and straight-living, showed
his appreciation of his employer's interest as he half-
flushed under his tan and nodded.
" Think it over," Forrest advised. " Make a
statistic of all the college girls — yes, and State Nor-
mal girls — you know. How many of them follow
career, and how many of them marry within two
years after their degrees and take to baby farming."
" Helen is very seriously bent on the matter,"
Crellin urged.
" Do you remember when I had my appendix
out ? " Forrest queried. " Well, I had as fine a nurse
as I ever saw and as nice a girl as ever walked on
two nice legs. She was just six months a full-fledged
nurse, then. And four months after that I had to
send her a wedding present. She married an auto-
mobile agent. She's lived in hotels ever since.
She's never had a chance to nurse — never a child of
her own to bring through a bout with colic. But
...
she has hopes ... and, whether or not her
hopes materialize, she's confoundedly happy. But
...
what good was her nursing apprenticeship ? "
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 21

Just then an empty manure-spreader passed, forc-

ing Crellin, on foot, and Forrest, on his mare, to
edge over to the side of the road. Forrest glanced
with kindling eye at the off mare of the machine, a
huge, symmetrical Shire whose own blue ribbons ,
and the blue ribbons of her progeny, would have re-
quired an expert accountant to enumerate and
classify.
" Look at the Fotherington Princess," Forrest
said, nodding at the mare that warmed his eye.
" She is a normal female. Only incidentally, through
thousands of years of domestic selection, has man
evolved her into a draught beast breeding true to
kind. But being a draught-beast is secondary.
Primarily she is a female. Take them by and large,
our own human females, above all else, love us men
and are intrinsically maternal. There is no
biological sanction for all the hurly burly of woman
to-day for suffrage and career."
" But there is an economic sanction," Crellin ob-
jected.
" True," his employer agreed, then proceeded to
discount. " Our present industrial system prevents
marriage and compels woman to career. But, re-
member, industrial systems come, and industrial sys-
tems go, while biology runs on forever."
" It's rather hard to satisfy young women with
marriage these days," the hog-manager demurred.
Dick Forrest laughed incredulously.
" I don't know about that," he said. " There's
your wife for an instance. She with her sheepskin
—classical scholar at that — well, what has she done
with it? ... Two boys and three girls, I believe ?
22 THE LITTLE LADY

As I remember your telling me, she was engaged to

you the whole last half of her senior year."
" True, but —" Crellin insisted, with an eye-
twinkle of appreciation of the point, " that was
fifteen years ago, as well as a love-match. We just
couldn't help it. That far, I agree. She had
planned unheard-of achievements, while I saw noth-
ing else than the deanship of the College of Agricul-
ture. We just couldn't help it. But that was fifteen
years ago, and fifteen years have made all the differ-
ence in the world in the ambitions and ideals of our
young women."
" Don't you believe it for a moment. I tell you,
Mr. Crellin, it's a statistic. All contrary things are
transient. Ever woman remains woman, everlast-
ing, eternal. Not until our girl-children cease from
playing with dolls and from looking at their own en-
ticingness in mirrors, will woman ever be otherwise
than what she has always been: first, the mother, sec-
ond, the mate of man. It is a statistic. I've been
looking up the girls who graduate from the State
Normal. You will notice that those who marry by
the way before graduation are excluded. Neverthe-
less, the average length of time the graduates actu-
ally teach school is little more than two years. And
when you consider that a lot of them, through ill
looks and ill luck, are foredoomed old maids and are
foredoomed to teach all their lives, you can see how
they cut down the period of teaching of the mar-
riageable ones."
" A woman, even a girl-woman, will have her way
where mere men are concerned," Crellin muttered,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 23

unable to dispute his employer's figures but resolved

to look them up.
" And your girl-woman will go to Stanford," For-
rest laughed, as he prepared to lift his mare into a
gallop, " and you and I and all men, to the end of
time, will see to it that they do have their way."
Crellin smiled to himself as his employer dimin-
ished down the road; for Crellin knew his Kipling,
and the thought that caused the smile was : " But
where's the kid of your own, Mr. Forrest ? " He
decided to repeat it to Mrs. Crellin over the break-
fast coffee.
Once again Dick Forrest delayed ere he gained the
Big House. The man he stopped he addressed as
Mendenhall, who was his horse-manager as well as
pasture expert, and who was reputed to know, not
onlyevery blade of grass on the ranch, but the length
of every blade of grass and its age from seed-germi-
nation as well.
At signal from Forrest, Mendenhall drew up the
two colts he was driving in a double breaking-cart.
What had caused Forrest to signal was a glance he
hadcaught, across the northern edge of the valley, of
great, smooth-hill ranges miles beyond, touched by
the sun and deeply green where they projected into
the vast flat of the Sacramento Valley.
The talk that followed was quick and abbrevi-
ated to terms of understanding between two men who
knew. Grass was the subject. Mention was made
of the winter rainfall and of the chance for late
spring rains to come. Names occurred, such as the
Little Coyote and Los Cuatos creeks, the Yolo and
24 THE LITTLE LADY

the Miramar hills, the Big Basin, Round Valley, and

the San Anselmo and Los Banos ranges. Move-
ments of herds and droves, past, present, and to
come, were discussed, as well as the outlook for culti-
vated hay in far upland pastures and the estimates
of such hay that still remained over the winter in re-
mote barns in the sheltered mountain valleys where
herds had wintered and been fed.
Under the oaks, at the stamping posts, Forrest
was saved the trouble of tying the Man-Eater. A
stableman came on the run to take the mare, and For-
rest, scarce pausing for a word about a horse by the
name of Duddy, was clanking his spurs into the Big
House.
 CHAPTER III

FORREST entered a section of the Big House

F by way of a massive, hewn-timber, iron-
studded door that let in at the foot of what
seemed a donjon keep . The floor was cement, and
doors let off in various directions. One, opening to
a Chinese in the white apron and starched cap of a
chef, emitted at the same time the low hum of a
dynamo. It was this that deflected Forrest from his
straight path. He paused, holding the door ajar,
and peered into a cool , electric-lighted cement room
where stood a long, glass-fronted, glass-shelved re-
frigerator flanked by an ice-machine and a dynamo .
On the floor, in greasyemove ralls squatted a greasy
ploy ,no
littleman to wh
om his er dded.
"Anything wrong, Thompson ? " he asked.
Th
ple"te. ere was," was the
answer, positive and com-
Forrest closed the door and went on along a pas-
sage that was like a tunnel. Narrow, iron-barred
openings, like the slits for archers in medieval castles,
dimly lighted the way. Another door gave access
to a long, low room, beam-ceilinged, with
in which an ox could have been roasted. fiArehu
a
gee
plac
stump, resting on a bed of coals, blazed brightly.
Two billiard tables, several card tables, lounging
corners, and a miniature bar constituted the major
25
26 THE LITTLE LADY

furnishing. Two young men chalked their cues and

returned Forrest's greeting.
" Good morning, Mr. Naismith," he bantered.
"- More material for the Breeders' Gazette ? "
Naismith, a youngish man of thirty, with glasses,
smiled sheepishly and cocked his head at his com-
panion.
" Wainwright challenged me," he explained.
" Which means that Lute and Ernestine must still
be beauty-sleeping," Forrest laughed.
Young Wainwright bristled to acceptance of the
challenge, but before he could utter the retort on his
lips his host was moving on and addressing Naismith
over his shoulder.
" Do you want to come along at eleven:thirty ?
Thayer and I are running out in the machine to look
over the Shropshires. He wants about ten carloads
of rams. You ought to find good stuff in this matter
of Idaho shipments. Bring your camera along.
— Seen Thayer this morning ? "
" Just came in to breakfast as we were leaving,"
Bert Wainwright volunteered.
" Tell him to be ready at eleven-thirty if you see
him. You're not invited, Bert out of kind-
ness . The girls are sure to be up then."
" Take Rita along with you anyway," Bert
pleaded.
" No fear," was Forrest's reply from the door.
" We're on business. Besides, you can't pry Rita
from Ernestine with block-and-tackle ."
" That's why I wanted to see if you could," Bert
grinned.
" Funny how fellows never appreciate their own
 OF THE BIG HOUSE
27

sisters. " Forrest paused for a perceptible moment .

" I always thought Rita was a real nice sister.
What's the matter with her ? "
Before a reply could reach him, he had closed the
door and was jingling his spurs along the passage to
a spiral stairway of broad concrete steps. As he
left the head of the stairway, a dance-time piano
measure and burst of laughter made him peep into
a white morning room, flooded with sunshine. A
young girl, in rose-colored kimono and bou-
doir cap, was at the instrument, while two others ,
similarly accoutered, in each other's arms, were par-
odying a dance never learned at dancing school
nor intended by the participants for male eyes to
see.

The girl at the piano discovered him, winked, and

played on. Not for another minute did the dancers
spy him. They gave startled cries, collapsed, laugh-
ing, in each other's arms, and the music stopped.
They were gorgeous, healthy young creatures, the
three of them, and Forrest's eye kindled as he looked
at them in quite the same way that it had kindled
when he regarded the Fotherington Princess .
Persiflage, of the sort that obtains among young
things of the human kind, flew back and forth.
" I've been here five minutes," Dick Forrest as-
serted.

The two dancers, to cover their confusion, doubted

his veracity and instanced his many well-known and :

notorious guilts of mendacity. The girl at the

piano, Ernestine, his sister-in-law, insistedthat pearls
of truth fell from his lips, that she had seen him
from the moment he began to look, and that as she
28 THE LITTLE LADY

estimated the passage of time he had been looking

much longer than five minutes.
" Well, anyway," Forrest broke in on their babel,
" Bert, the sweet innocent, doesn't think you are up
yet."
" We're not ... to him," one of the dancers, a
vivacious young Venus, retorted. " Nor are we to
you either. So run along, little boy. Run along."
" Look here, Lute," Forrest began sternly.
" Just because I am a decrepit old man, and just be-
cause you are eighteen, just eighteen, and happen to
be my wife's sister, you needn't presume to put the
high and mighty over on me. Don't forget — and I
state the fact, disagreeable as it may be, for Rita's
sake -

don't forget that in the past ten years I've

paddled you more disgraceful times than you care to
dare me to enumerate.
" It is true, I am not so young as I used to was,
but—" He felt the biceps of his right arm and
made as if to roll up the sleeve. "— But, I'm not
all in yet, and for two cents .."
" What? " the young woman challenged belliger-
ently.
" For two cents," he muttered darkly. " For two
cents . Besides, and it grieves me to inform you,
your cap is not on straight. Also, it is not a very
tasteful creation at best. I could make a far more
becoming cap with my toes, asleep, and ..
yes,
seasick as well . "
Lute tossed her blond head defiantly, glanced at
her comrades in solicitation of support, and said :
" Oh, I don't know. It seems humanly reason-
able that the three of us can woman-handle a mere
 OF THE BIG HOUSE
29
man of your elderly and insulting avoirdupois.
What do you say, girls ? Let's rush him . He's not
a minute under forty, and he has an aneurism. Yes,
and though loath to divulge family secrets, he's got
Meniere's Disease ."
Ernestine, a small but robust blonde of eighteen,
sprang from the piano and joined her two comrades
in a raid on the cushions of the deep window seats .
Side by side , a cushion in each hand, and with proper
distance between them cannily established for the
swinging of the cushions, they advanced upon the
foe.
Forrest prepared for battle, then held up his hand
for parley.
" Fraid cat ! " they taunted, in several at first, and
then in chorus .
He shook his head emphatically.
"Just for that, and for all the rest of your in-
solences, the three of you are going to get yours.
All the wrongs of a lifetime are rising now in my
brain in a dazzling brightness . I shall go Berserk
in a moment. But first, and I speak as an agricul-
turist, and I address myself to you, Lute, in all hu-
mility, in heaven's name what is Meniere's Disease ?
Do sheep catch it ? "
" Meniere's Disease is," Lute began, . " is
..

wha t you've got. Sheep are the only known living

creatures that get it."
Ensued redwar and chaos. Forrest made a foot-
ball rush of the sort that obtained in California be-
fore the adoption of Rugby and the gir bro the
; ls ke
line to let him through, turned upon him, flanked
him on either side, and pounded him with cushions.
30 THE LITTLE LADY

He turned, with widespread arms, extended fingers,

each finger a hook, and grappled the three. The
battle became a whirlwind, a be-spurred man the cen-
ter, from which radiated flying draperies of flimsy
silk, disconnected slippers, boudoir caps, and hair-
pins. There were thuds from the cushions, grunts
from the man, squeals, yelps and giggles from the
girls, and from the totality of the combat inextin-
guishable laughter and a ripping and tearing of fra-
gile textures.
Dick Forrest found himself sprawled on the floor,
the wind half knocked out of him by shrewdly de-
livered cushions, his head buzzing from the buffeting,
and, in one hand, a trailing, torn, and generally dis-
rupted girdle of pale blue silk and pink roses.
In one doorway, cheeks flaming from the struggle,
stood Rita, alert as a fawn and ready to flee. In
the other doorway, likewise flame-checked, stood
Ernestine in the commanding attitude of the Mother
of the Gracchi, the wreckage of her kimono wrapped
severely about her and held severely about her by
her own waist-pressing arm. Lute, cornered behind
the piano, attempted to run but was driven back by
the menace of Forrest, who, on hands and knees,
stamped loudly with the palms of his hands on the
hardwood floor, rolled his head savagely, and
emitted bull-like roars .
" And they still believe that old prehistoric myth, "
Ernestine proclaimed from safety, " that once he,
that wretched semblance of a man-thing prone in
the dirt, captained Berkeley to victory over Stan-
ford."
Her breasts heaved from the exertion, and he
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 31

marked the pulsating of the shimmering cherry-col-

ored silk with delight as he flung his glance around
to the other two girls similarly breathing.
The piano was a miniature grand— a dainty thing
of rich white and gold to match the morning room.
It stood out from the wall, so that there was possi-
bility for Lute to escape around either way of it.
Forrest gained his feet and faced her across the
broad, flat top of the instrument. As he threatened
to vault it, Lute cried out in horror :
"
" But your spurs, Dick ! Your spurs!
" Give me time to take them off," he offered.
As he stooped to unbuckle them, Lute darted to
escape, but was herded back to the shelter of the
piano.
" All right," he growled. " On your head be it.
If the piano's scratched I'll tell Paula."
" I've got witnesses," she panted, indicating with
her blue joyous eyes the young things in the door-
ways.
" Very well, my dear." Forrest drew back his
body and spread his resting palms. " I'm coming
over to you."
Action and speech were simultaneous. His body,
posited sidewise from his hands, was vaulted across,
the perilous spurs a full foot above the glossy white
surface. And simultaneously Lute ducked and went
under the piano on hands and knees. Her mis-
chance lay in that she bumped her head, and, before
she could recover way, Forrest had circled the piano
and cornered her under it.
" Come out ! " he commanded. " Come out and
take your medicine ! "
 32 THE LITTLE LADY

" A truce," she pleaded. " A truce, Sir Knight,

for dear love's sake and all damsels in distress ."
" I ain't no knight," Forrest announced in his
deepest bass. " I'm an ogre, a filthy, debased and
altogether unregenerate ogre. I was born in the
tule-swamps. My father was an ogre and my
mother was more so. I was lulled to slumber on
the squalls of infants dead, foreordained, and pre-
damned. I was nourished solely on the blood of
maidens educated in Mills Seminary. My favorite
chophouse has ever been a hardwood floor, a loaf
of Mills Seminary maiden, and a roof of flat piano.
My father, as well as an ogre, was a California
horse-thief. I am more reprehensible than my
father. I have more teeth. My mother, as well as
an ogress, was a Nevada book-canvasser. Let all
her shame be told. She even solicited subscriptions
for ladies' magazines. I am more terrible than my
mother. I have peddled safety razors."
" Can naught soothe and charm your savage
breast ? " Lute pleaded in soulful tones while she
studied her chances for escape .
" One thing only, miserable female. One thing
only, on the earth, over the earth, and under its ruin-
ing waters -”
A squawk of recognized plagiarism interrupted
him from Ernestine.
" See Ernest Dowson, page seventy-nine, a thin
book of thin verse ladled out with porridge to young
women detentioned at Mills Seminary," Forrest went
on. " As I had already enunciated before I was so
rudely interrupted, the one thing only that can balm
and embalm this savage breast is the ' Maiden's
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 33

Prayer.' Listen, with all your ears ere I chew them

off in multitude and gross ! Listen, silly, unbeauti-
ful, squat, short-legged and ugly female under the
piano ! Can you recite the ' Maiden's Prayer ' ? ‫יי‬
Screams of delight from the young things in the
doorways prevented the proper answer and Lute,
from under the piano, cried out to young Wain-
wright, who had appeared :
" A rescue, Sir Knight ! A rescue ! "
" Unhand the maiden ! " was Bert's challenge.
" Who art thou ? " Forrest demanded.
" King George, sirrah ! — I mean, er, Saint
George."
" Then am I thy dragon," Forrest announced with
due humility. " Spare this ancient, honorable, and
only neck I have. "
" Off with his head! " the young things encour-
aged.
11

Stay thee, maidens, I pray thee," Bert begged.

" I am only a Small Potato. Yet am I unafraid. I
shall beard the dragon. I shall beard him in his
gullet, and, while he lingeringly chokes to death over
my unpalatableness and general spinefulness, do you,
fair damsels, flee to the mountains lest the valleys
fall upon you. Yolo, Petaluma, and West Sacra-
mento are about to be overwhelmed by a tidal wave
and many big fishes."
" Off with his head! " the young things chanted.
" Slay him in his blood and barbecue him ! "
" Thumbs down," Forrest groaned. " I am un-
done. Trust to the unstrained quality of mercy pos-
sessed by Christian young women in the year 1914
who will vote some day if ever they grow up and do
34 THE LITTLE LADY

not marry foreigners. Consider my head off, Saint

George. I am expired. Further deponent sayeth
not."
And Forrest, with sobs and slubberings, with real-
istic shudders and kicks and a great jingling of spurs,
lay down on the floor and expired.
Lute crawled out from under the piano, and was
joined by Rita and Ernestine in an extemporized
dance of the harpies about the slain.
In the midst of it, Forrest sat up, protesting.
Also, he was guilty of a significant and privy wink to
Lute.
" The hero ! " he cried. " Forget him not.
Crown him with flowers . "
And Bert was crowned with flowers from the
vases, unchanged from the day before. When a
bunch of water-logged stems of early tulips, pro-
pelled by Lute's vigorous arm, impacted soggily on
his neck under the ear, he fled. The riot of pursuit
echoed along the hall and died out down the stairway
toward the stag room. Forrest gathered himself to-
gether, and, grinning, went jingling on through the
Big House.
He crossed two patios on brick walks roofed with
Spanish tile and swamped with early foliage and
blooms, and gained his wing of the house, still
breathing from the fun, to find, in the office, his secre-
tary awaiting him.
" Good morning, Mr. Blake," he greeted. " Sorry
I was delayed." He glanced at his wrist-watch.
" Only four minutes, however. I just couldn't get
away sooner."
 CHAPTER IV

ROM nine till ten Forrest gave himself up to

F his secretary, achieving a correspondence that
included learned societies and every sort of
breeding and agricultural organization and that
would have compelled the average petty business
man, unaided, to sit up till midnight to accomplish.
For Dick Forrest was the center of a system which
he himself had built and of which he was secretly
very proud. Important letters and documents he
signed with his ragged fist. All other letters were
rubber-stamped by Mr. Blake, who, also, in short-
hand, in the course of the hour, put down the indi-
cated answers to many letters and received the for-
mula designations of reply to many other letters.
Mr. Blake's private opinion was that he worked
longer hours than his employer, although it was
equally his private opinion that his employer was a
wonder for discovering work for others to perform.
At ten, to the stroke of the clock, as Pittman, For-
rest's show-manager, entered the office, Blake, bur-
dened with trays of correspondence, sheafs of docu-
ments, and phonograph cylinders, faded away to his
own office.
From ten to eleven a stream of managers and
foremen flowed in and out. All were well disci-
plined in terseness and time-saving. As Dick For-
rest had taught them, the minutes spent with him
were not minutes of cogitation. They must be pre-
35
36 THE LITTLE LADY

pared before they reported or suggested. Bon-

bright, the assistant secretary, always arrived at ten
to replace Blake; and Bonbright, close to shoulder,
with flying pencil, took down the rapid-fire inter-
change of question and answer, statement and pro-
posal and plan. These shorthand notes, transcribed
and typed in duplicate, were the nightmare and, on
occasion, the Nemesis, of the managers and foremen.
For, first, Forrest had a remarkable memory ; and,
second, he was prone to prove its worth by reference
to those same notes of Bonbright.
A manager, at the end of a five or ten minute ses-
sion, often emerged sweating, limp and frazzled.
Yet for a swift hour, at high tension, Forrest met
all comers, with a master's grip handling them and
all the multifarious details of their various depart-
ments. He told Thompson, the machinist, in four
flashing minutes, where the fault lay in the dynamo
to the Big House refrigerator, laid the fault home to
Thompson, dictated a note to Bonbright, with cita-
tion by page and chapter to a volume from the li-
brary to be drawn by Thompson, told Thompson
that Parkman, the dairy manager, was not satisfied
with the latest wiring up of milking machines, and
that the refrigerating plant at the slaughter house
was balking at its accustomed load.
Each man was a specialist, yet Forrest was the
proved master of their specialties. As Paulson, the
head plowman, complained privily to Dawson, the
crop manager : " I've worked here twelve years
and never have I seen him put his hands to a plow,
and yet, damn him, he somehow seems to know.
He's a genius, that's what he is. Why, d'ye know,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 37

I've seen him tear by a piece of work, his hands full

with that Man-Eater of his a-threatenin' sudden fu-
neral, an', next morning, had 'm mention casually to
a half-inch how deep it was plowed an' what plows'd
done the plowin' ! — Take that plowin' of the
Poppy Meadow, up above Little Meadow, on Los
Cuatos. I just couldn't see my way to it, an' had to
cut out the cross-sub-soiling, an' thought I could slip it
over on him. After it was all finished he kind of
happened up that way— I was lookin' an' he didn't
seem to look — an' , well, next A. M. I got mine in
the office. No ; I didn't slip it over. I ain't tried to
slip nothing over since."
At eleven sharp, Wardman, his sheep manager,
departed with an engagement scheduled at eleven :
thirty to ride in the machine along with Thayer, the
Idaho buyer, to look over the Shropshire rams. At
eleven, Bonbright having departed with Wardman
to work up his notes, Forrest was left alone in the -

office. From a wire tray of unfinished business

one of many wire trays superimposed in groups of
five- he drew a pamphlet issued by the State of
Iowa onhog cholera and proceeded to scan it.
Five feet, ten inches in height, weighing a clean-
muscled one hundred and eighty pounds, Dick For-
rest was anything but insignificant for a forty years'
old man. The eyes were gray, large, over-arched by
bone of brow, and lashes and brows were dark.
The hair, above an ordinary forehead, was light
brown to chestnut. Under the forehead, the cheeks
showed high-boned, with underneath the slight hol-
lows that necessarily accompany such formation.
The jaws were strong without massiveness, the nose,
 38 THE LITTLE LADY

large-nostriled, was straight enough and prominent

enough without being too straight or prominent, the
chin square without harshness and uncleft, and the
mouth girlish and sweet to a degree that did not hide
the firmness to which the lips could set on due provo-
cation. The skin was smooth and well-tanned, al-
though, midway between eyebrows and hair, the tan
of forehead faded in advertisement of the rim of
the Baden Powell interposed between him and the
sun .

Laughter lurked in the mouth corners and eye-

corners, and there were cheek lines about the mouth
that would seem to have been formed by laughter.
Equally strong, however, every line of the face that
i meant blended things carried a notice of surety.
Dick Forrest was sure — sure, when his hand
reached out for any object on his desk, that the hand
would straightly attain the object without a fumble
or a miss of a fraction of an inch; sure, when his
brain leaped the high places of the hog cholera text;
that it was not missing a point; sure, from his bal-
anced body in the revolving desk-chair to the bal-
anced back-head of him; sure, in heart and brain,
of life and work, of all he possessed, and of him-
self.
He had reason to be sure. Body, brain, and
career were long-proven sure. A rich man's son, he
had not played ducks and drakes with his father's
money. City born and reared, he had gone back to
the land and made such a success as to put his name
on the lips of breeders wherever breeders met and
talked. He was the owner, without encumbrance,
of two hundred and fifty thousand acres of land -
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 39

land that varied in value from a thousand dollars an

acre to a hundred dollars, that varied from a hun-
dred dollars to ten cents an acre, and that, in
stretches, was not worth a penny an acre. The im-
provements on that quarter of a million acres, from
drain-tiled meadows to dredge-drained tule swamps,
from good roads to developed water-rights, from
farm buildings to the Big House itself, constituted a
sum gaspingly ungraspable to the country-side.
Everything was large-scale but modern to the last
tick of the clock. His managers lived, rent-free,
with salaries commensurate to ability, in five- and ten-
thousand-dollar houses — but they were the cream
of specialists skimmed from the continent from the
Atlantic to the Pacific. When he ordered gasoline-
tractors for the cultivation of the flat lands, he or-
dered a round score. When he dammed water in
his mountains he dammed it by the hundreds of mil-
lions of gallons. When he ditched his tule-swamps,
instead of contracting the excavation, he bought the
huge dredgers outright, and, when there was slack
work on his own marshes, he contracted for the
draining of the marshes of neighboring big farmers,
land companies, and corporations for a hundred
miles up and down the Sacramento River.
He had brain sufficient to know the need of buying
brains and to pay a tidy bit over the current market
price for the most capable brains. And he had
brain suficient to direct the brains he bought to a
profitable conclusion.
And yet, he was just turned forty, was clear-eyed,
calm-hearted, hearty-pulsed, man-strong ; and yet, his
history, until he was thirty, had been harum-scarum
 40 THE LITTLE LADY
!
and erratic to the superlative. He had run away
from a millionaire home when he was thirteen. He
had won enviable college honors ere he was twenty-
one and after that he had known all the purple ports
of the purple seas, and, with cool head, hot heart,
and laughter, played every risk that promised and
provided in the wild world of adventure that he had
lived to see pass under the sobriety of law.
In the old days of San Francisco Forrest had been
a name to conjure with. The Forrest Mansion had
been one of the pioneer palaces on Nob Hill where
dwelt the Floods, the Mackays, the Crockers, and
the O'Briens. " Lucky " Richard Forrest, the
father, had arrived, via the Isthmus, straight from
old New England, keenly commercial, interested be-
fore his departure in clipper ships and the building
of clipper ships, and interested immediately after his
arrival in water-front real estate, river steamboats,
mines, of course, and, later, in the draining of the
Nevada Comstock and the construction of the South-
ern Pacific.
He played big, he won big, he lost big; but he won
always more than he lost, and what he paid out at
one game with one hand, he drew back with his other
hand at another game. His winnings from the
Comftock he sank into the various holes of the bot-
tomless Daffodil Group in Eldorado County. The
wreckage from the Benicia Line he turned into the
Napa Consolidated, which was a quicksilver venture,
and it earned him five thousand per cent. What he
lost in the collapse of the Stockton boom was more
than balanced by the realty appreciation of his key-
holdings at Sacramento and Oakland.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 41

And, to cap it all, when " Lucky " Richard For-

rest had lost everything in a series of calamities, so
that San Francisco debated what price his Nob Hill
palace would fetch at auction, he grubstaked one,
Del Nelson, to a prospecting in Mexico. As soberly
set down in history, the result of the said Del Nel-
son's search for quartz was the Harvest Group, in-
cluding the fabulous and inexhaustible Tattlesnake,
Voice, City, Desdemona, Bullfrog, and Yellow Boy
claims. Del Nelson, astounded by his achievement,
within the year drowned himself in an enormous
quantity of cheap whisky, and, the will being incon-
testible through lack of kith and kin, left his half to
Lucky Richard Forrest.
Dick Forrest was the son of his father. Lucky
Richard, a man of boundless energy and enterprise,
though twice married and twice widowed, had not
been blessed with children. His third marriage oc- !
curred in 1872, when he was fifty-eight, and in 1874,
although he lost the mother, a twelve-pound boy,
stout-barreled and husky-lunged, remained to be
brought up by a regiment of nurses in the palace on
Nob Hill .
Young Dick was precocious. Lucky Richard was !
a democrat. Result: Young Dick learned in a
year from a private teacher what would have re-
quired three years in the grammar school, and used
all of the saved years in playing in the open air.
Also, result of precocity of son and democracy of
father, Young Dick was sent to grammar school for
the last year in order to learn shoulder-rubbing
democracy with the sons and daughters of workmen,
tradesmen, saloon-keepers and politicians.
42 THE LITTLE LADY

In class recitation or spelling match his father's

millions did not aid him in competing with Patsy Hal-
loran, the mathematical prodigy whose father was a
hod-carrier, nor with Mona Sanguinetti who was a
wizard at spelling and whose widowed mother ran a
vegetable store. Nor were his father's millions and
the Nob Hill palace of the slightest assistance to
Young Dick when he peeled his jacket and, bare-
knuckled, without rounds, licking or being licked,
milled it to a finish with Jimmy Botts, Jean Choy-
insky, and the rest of the lads that went out over the
world to glory and cash a few years later, a genera-
tion of prizefighters that only San Francisco, raw and
virile and yeasty and young, could have produced.
The wisest thing Lucky Richard did for his boy
was to give him this democratic tutelage. In his
secret heart, Young Dick never forgot that he lived
in a palace of many servants and that his father was
a man of power and honor. On the other hand,
Young Dick learned two-legged, two-fisted democ-
racy. He learned it when Mona Sanguinetti spelled
him down in class. He learned it when Berney Mil-
ler out-dodged and out-ran him when running across
in Black Man.
And when Tim Hagan, with straight left for the
hundredth time to bleeding nose and mangled mouth,
and with ever reiterant right hook to stomach, had
him dazed and reeling, the breath whistling and
sobbing through his lacerated lips —was no time for
succor from palaces and bank accounts. On his two
legs, with his two fists, it was either he or Tim.
And it was right there, in sweat and blood and iron
of soul, that Young Dick learned how not to lose a
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 43

losing fight. It had been uphill from the first blow,

but he stuck it out until in the end it was agreed that
neither could best the other, although this agreement
wasnot reached until they had first lain on the ground
in nausea and exhaustion and with streaming eyes
wept their rage and defiance at each other. After
that, they became chums and between them ruled the
schoolyard.
Lucky Richard died the same month Young Dick
emerged from grammar school. Young Dick was
thirteen years old, with twenty million dollars, and
without a relative in the world to trouble him. He
was the master of a palace of servants, a steam
yacht, stables, and, as well, of a summer palace down
the Peninsula in the nabob colony at Menlo. One
thing, only, was he burdened with: guardians.
On a summer afternoon, in the big library, he at-
tended the first session of his board of guardians.
There were three of them, all elderly, and successful,
all legal, all business comrades of his father. Dick's
impression, as they explained things to him, was that,
although they meant well, he had no contacts with
them. In his judgment, their boyhood was too far
behind them. Besides that, it was patent that him,
the particular boy they were so much concerned with,
they did not understand at all. Furthermore, in his
own sure way he decided that he was the one person
in the world fitted to know what was best for him-
self.
Mr. Crockett made a long speech, to which Dick
listened with alert and becoming attention, nodding
his head whenever he was directly addressed or ap-
pealed to. Messrs. Davidson and Slocum also had
44 THE LITTLE LADY

their say and were treated with equal consideration.

Among other things, Dick learned what a sterling,
upright man his father had been, and the program
already decided upon by the three gentlemen which
would make him into a sterling and upright man.
When they were quite done, Dick took it upon him-
self to say a few things.
" I have thought it over," he announced, " and
first of all I shall go traveling."
" That will come afterward, my boy," Mr.
Slocum explained soothingly. " When -

say —
when you are ready to enter the university. At that
time a year abroad would be a very good thing ...

a very good thing indeed."

" Of course, " Mr. Davidson volunteered quickly,
having noted the annoyed light in the lad's eyes and
the unconscious firm-drawing and setting of the lips,
" of course, in the meantime you could do some
traveling, a limited amount of traveling, during your
school vacations. I am sure my fellow guardians
will agree — under the proper management and
safeguarding, of course — that such bits of travel
sandwiched between your school-terms, would be ad-
visable and beneficial."
" How much did you say I am worth ? " Dick
asked with apparent irrelevance.
66
Twenty millions— at a most conservative esti-
mate — that is about the sum," Mr. Crockett an-
swered promptly.
" Suppose I said right now that I wanted a hun-
dred dollars ! " Dick went on.
66

Why -er- ahem." Mr. Slocum looked

about him for guidance.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 45

" We would be compelled to ask what you wanted

it for," answered Mr. Crockett.
" And suppose," Dick said very slowly, looking
Mr. Crockett squarely in the eyes, " suppose I said
that I was very sorry, but that I did not care to say
what I wanted it for? "
" Then you wouldn't get it," Mr. Crockett said
so immediately that there was a hint of testiness and
snap in his manner.
Dick nodded slowly, as if letting the information
sink in.
But, of course, my boy," Mr. Slocum took up
hastily, " you understand you are too young to handle
money yet. We must decide that for you."
" You mean I can't touch a penny without your
permission? "
" Not a penny, " Mr. Crockett snapped.
Dick nodded his head thoughtfully and murmured,
" Oh, I see."
" Of course, and quite naturally, it would only be
fair, you know, you will have a small allowance for
your personal spending," Mr. Davidson said.
" Say, a dollar, or, perhaps, two dollars, a week. As
you grow older this allowance will be increased.
And by the time you are twenty-one, doubtlessly you
will be fully qualified — with advice, of course — to
handle your own affairs."
" And until I am twenty-one my twenty million
wouldn't buy me a hundred dollars to do as I please
with? " Dick queried very subduedly.
Mr. Davidson started to corroborate in soothing
phrases, but was waved to silence by Dick, who con-
tinued:
46 THE LITTLE LADY

" As I understand it, whatever money I handle

will be by agreement between the four of us ? "
The Board of Guardians nodded.
" That is, whatever we agree, goes ? "
Again the Board of Guardians nodded.
" Well, I'd like to have a hundred right now,"
Dick announced.
" What for ? " Mr. Crockett demanded.
" I don't mind telling you," was the lad's steady
answer. " To go traveling. "
" You'll go to bed at eight thirty this evening, "
Mr. Crockett retorted. " And you don't get any
hundred. The lady we spoke to you about will be
here before six. She is to have, as we explained,
daily and hourly charge of you. At six-thirty, as
usual, you will dine, and she will dine with you and
see you to bed. As we told you, she will have to
serve the place of a mother to you — see that your
ears are clean, your neck washed -"
" And that I get my Saturday night bath," Dick
amplified meekly for him.
" Precisely. "
" How much are you — am I— paying the lady
for her services ? " Dick questioned in the discon-
certing, tangential way that was already habitual to
him, as his school companions and teachers had
learned to their cost.
Mr. Crockett for the first time cleared his throat
for pause.
" I'm paying her, ain't I ? " Dick prodded. " Out
of the twenty million, you know."
" The spit of his father," said Mr. Slocum in an
aside.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 47

" Mrs. Summerstone, the lady as you elect to call

her, receives one hundred and fifty a month, eighteen
hundred a year in round sum," said Mr. Crockett.
" It's a waste of perfectly good money," Dick
sighed. " And board and lodging thrown in ! "
He stood up — not the born aristocrat of the gen-
erations, but the reared aristocrat of thirteen years
in the Nob Hill palace. He stood up with such a
manner that his Board of Guardians left their leather
chairs to stand up with him. But he stood up as no
Lord Fauntleroy ever stood up ; for he was a mixer.
He had knowledge that human life was many-faced
and many-placed. Not for nothing had he been
spelled down by Mona Sanguinetti. Not for noth-
ing had he fought Tim Hagan to a standstill and,
co-equal, ruled the schoolyard roost with him.
He was birthed of the wild gold-adventure of
Forty-nine. He was a reared aristocrat and a gram-
mar-school-trained democrat. He knew, in his
precocious immature way, the differentiations between
caste and mass; and, behind it all, he was possessed
of a will of his own and of a quiet surety of self
that was incomprehensible to the three elderly gentle-
men who had been given charge of his and his destiny
and who had pledged themselves to increase his
twenty millions and make a man of him in their own
composite image.
" Thank you for your kindness," Young Dick
said generally to the three. " I guess we'll get
along all right. Of course, that twenty millions is
mine, and of course you've got to take care of it for
me, seeing I know nothing of business —"
" And we'll increase it for you, my boy, we'll in-
48 THE LITTLE LADY

crease it for you in safe, conservative ways," Mr.

Slocum assured him.
" No speculation," Young Dick warned. " Dad's
just been lucky — I've heard him say that times have
changed and a fellow can't take the chances every-
body used to take."
From which, and from much which has already
passed, it might erroneously be inferred that Young
Dick was a mean and money-grubbing soul. On
the contrary, he was at that instant entertaining
secret thoughts and plans so utterly regardless and
disdainful of his twenty millions as to place him on
a par with a drunken sailor sowing the beach with
a three years' pay-day.
" I am only a boy," Young Dick went on. " But
you don't know me very well yet. We'll get better "
acquainted by and by, and, again thanking you
He paused, bowed briefly and grandly as lords in
Nob Hill palaces early learn to bow, and, by the
quality of the pause, signified that the audience was
over. Nor did the impact of dismissal miss his
guardians. They, who had been co-lords with his
father, withdrew confused and perplexed. Messrs.
Davidson and Slocum were on the point of resolving
their perplexity into wrath, as they went down the
great stone stairway to the waiting carriage, but Mr.
Crockett, the testy and snappish, muttered ecstatic-
ally: " The son of a gun ! The little son of a
gun ! "
The carriage carried them down to the old Pacific
Union Club, where, for another hour, they gravely
discussed the future of Young Dick Forrest and
pledged themselves anew to the faith reposed in them
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 49

by Lucky Richard Forrest. And down the hill, on

foot, where grass grew on the paved streets too steep
for horse-traffic, Young Dick hurried. As the height
of land was left behind, almost immediately the pal-
aces and spacious grounds of the nabobs gave way
to the mean streets and wooden warrens of the
working people. The San Francisco of 1887 as in-
continently intermingled its slums and mansions as
did the old cities of Europe. Nob Hill arose, like
any medieval castle, from the mess and ruck of
common life that denned and laired at its base.
Young Dick came to pause alongside a corner
grocery, the second story of which was rented to
Timothy Hagan Senior, who, by virtue of being a
policeman with a wage of a hundred dollars a month,
rented this high place to dwell above his fellows who
supported families on no more than forty and fifty
dollars a month.
In vain Young Dick whistled up through the un-
screened, open windows. Tim Hagan Junior was
not at home. But Young Dick wasted little wind
in the whistling. He was debating on possible ad-
jacent places where Tim Hagan might be, when
Tim himself appeared around the corner, bearing a
lidless lard-can that foamed with steam beer. He
grunted greeting, and Young Dick grunted with equal
roughness, just as if, a brief space before, he had
not, in most lordly fashion, terminated an audience
with three of the richest merchant-kings of an im-
perial city. Nor did his possession of twenty in-
creasing millions hint the slightest betrayal in his
voice or mitigate in the slightest the gruffness of his
grunt.
50 THE LITTLE LADY

" Ain't seen yeh since yer old man died," Tim
Hagan commented.
" Well, you're seein' me now, ain't you ? " was
Young Dick's retort. " Say, Tim, I come to see you
on business ."
" Wait till I rush the beer to the old man," said
Tim, inspecting the state of the foam in the lard-can
with an experienced eye. " He'll roar his head off
if it comes in flat."
" Oh, you can shake it up," Young Dick assured
him. " Only want to see you a minute. I'm hitting
the road to-night. Want to come along? "
Tim's small, blue Irish eyes flashed with interest.
" Where to ? " he queried.
" Don't know. Want to come? If you do, we
can talk it over after we start ? You know the ropes .
What d'ye say ? "
" The old man'll beat the stuffin' outa me," Tim
demurred.
" He's done that before, an' you don't seem to be
much missing, " Young Dick callously rejoined.
66
Say the word, an' we'll meet at the Ferry Building
at nine to-night. What d'ye say ? I'll be there."
" Supposin' I don't show up ? " Tim asked.
" I'll be on my way just the same." Young Dick
turned as if to depart, paused casually, and said over
his shoulder, " Better come along."
Tim shook up the beer as he answered with equal
casualness, " Aw right. I'll be there."
After parting from Tim Hagan Young Dick spent
a busy hour or so looking up one, Marcovich, a Slav-
onian schoolmate whose father ran a chop-house in
which was reputed to be served the finest twenty-cent
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 51

meal in the city. Young Marcovich owed Young

Dick two dollars, and Young Dick accepted the pay-
ment of a dollar and forty cents as full quittance of
the debt.
Also, with shyness and perturbation, Young Dick
wandered down Montgomery Street and vacillated
among the many pawnshops that graced that thor-
oughfare. At last, diving desperately into one, he
managed to exchange for eight dollars and a ticket
his gold watch that he knew was worth fifty at the
very least.
Dinner in the Nob Hill palace was served at six-
thirty. He arrived at six-forty-five and encountered
Mrs. Summerstone. She was a stout, elderly, de-
cayed gentlewoman, a daughter of the great Porter-
Rickington family that had shaken the entire Pacific
Coast with its financial crash in the middle seventies .
Despite her stoutness, she suffered from what she
called shattered nerves.
" This will never, never do, Richard," she cen-
sured. " Here is dinner waiting fifteen minutes al-
ready, and you have not yet washed your face and
hands."
" I am sorry, Mrs. Summerstone, " Young Dick
apologized. " I won't keep you waiting ever again.
And I won't bother you much ever."
At dinner, in state, the two of them alone in the
great dining room, Young Dick strove to make things
easy for the lady, whom, despite his knowledge that
she was on his pay-roll, he felt toward as a host must
feel toward a guest.
"
" You'll be very comfortable here, " he promised,
once you are settled down. It's a good old house,
52 THE LITTLE LADY

and most of the servants have been here for

years."
66

But, Richard," she smiled seriously to him; " it

is not the servants who will determine my happiness
here. It is you."
" I'll do my best," he said graciously. " Better
than that. I'm sorry I came in late for dinner. In
years and years you'll never see me late again. I
won't bother you at all. You'll see. It will be just
as though I wasn't in the house."
When he bade her good night, on his way to bed,
he added, as a last thought :
" I'll warn you of one thing : Ah Sing. He's the
cook. He's been in our house for years and years —
oh, I don't know, maybe twenty-five or thirty years
he's cooked for father, from long before this house
was built or I was born. He's privileged. He's so
used to having his own way that you'll have to handle
him with gloves. But once he likes you he'll work
his fool head off to please you. He likes me that
way. You get him to like you, and you'll have the
time of your life here. And, honest, I won't give
you any trouble at all. It'll be a regular snap, just
as if I wasn't here at all. "
 CHAPTER V

Tnine in the evening, sharp to the second, clad

A in his oldest clothes, Young Dick met Tim
Hagan at the Ferry Building.
" No use headin' north," said Tim. " Winter'll
come on up that way and make the sleepin' crimpy.
D'ye want to go East — that means Nevada and the
deserts."
"Any other way? " queried Young Dick.
" What's the matter with south ? We can head for
Los Angeles, an' Arizona, an' New Mexico — oh,
an' Texas ."
"How much moneyyou got ? " Tim demanded.
' What for ? " Young Dick countered.
" We gotta get out quick, an' payin' our way at
the start is quickest. Me — I'm all hunkydory; but
you ain't. The folks that's lookin' after you'll raise
a roar. They'll have more detectives out than you
can shake at stick at. We gotta dodge ' em, that's
what."
" Then we will dodge," said Young Dick.
" We'll make short jumps this way and that for
a couple of days, layin' low most of the time, paying
our way, until we can get to Tracy. Then we'll quit
payin' an' beat her south. "
All of which program was carefully carried out.
They eventually went through Tracy as pay pas-
sengers, six hours after the local deputy sheriff had
53
54 THE LITTLE LADY

given up his task of searching the trains. With an

excess of precaution Young Dick paid beyond Tracy
and as far as Modesto. After that, under the teach-
ing of Tim, he traveled without paying, riding blind
baggage, box cars, and cow-catchers. Young Dick
bought the newspapers, and frightened Tim by read-
ing to him the lurid accounts of the kidnapping of the
young heir to the Forrest millions .
Back in San Francisco the Board of Guardians of-
fered rewards that totaled thirty thousand dollars
for the recovery of their ward. And Tim Hagan,
reading the same while they lay in the grass by some
water-tank, branded forever the mind of Young Dick
with the fact that honor beyond price was a matter
of neither place nor caste and might outcrop in the
palace on the height of land or in the dwelling over
a grocery down on the flat.
" Gee ! " Tim said to the general landscape.
" The old man wouldn't raise a roar if I snitched on
you for that thirty thousand. It makes me scared to
think of it."
And from the fact that Tim thus openly mentioned
the matter, Young Dick concluded that there was no
possibility of the policeman's son betraying him.
Not until six weeks afterward, in Arizona, did
Young Dick bring up the subject.
" You see, Tim," he said, " I've got slathers of
money. It's growing all the time, and I ain't spend-
ing a cent of it, not so as you can notice
...
though
that Mrs. Summerstone is getting a cold eighteen
hundred a year out of me, with board and carriages
thrown in, while you an' I are glad to get the leav-
ings of firemen's pails in the round-houses. Just the
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 55

same, my money's growing. What's ten per cent,

on twenty dollars ? "
Tim Hagan stared at the shimmering heat-waves
of the desert and tried to solve the problem.
" What's one-tenth of twenty million ? " Young
Dick demanded irritably.
"Huh!— two million, of course."
" Well, five per cent.'s half of ten per cent. What
does twenty million earn at five per cent, for one
year? "
Tim hesitated.
" Half of it, half of two million ! " Young Dick
cried. " At that rate I'm a million richer every year.
Get that, and hang on to it, and listen to me. When
-

I'm good and willing to go back but not for years

an' years we'll fix it up, you and I. When I say
-

the word, you'll write to your father. He'll jump

out to where we are waiting, pick me up, and cart me
back. Then he'll collect the thirty thousand reward
from my guardians, quit the police force, and most
likely start a saloon. "
" Thirty thousand's a hell of a lot of money,"
was Tim's nonchalant way of expressing his gratitude.
" Not to me," Young Dick minimized his gen-
erosity. " Thirty thousand goes into a million
thirty-three times, and a million's only a year's turn-
over of my money."
But Tim Hagan never lived to see his father a
saloon keeper. Two days later, on a trestle, the
lads were fired out of an empty box-car by a brake-
man who should have known better. The trestle
spanned a dry ravine. Young Dick looked down at
the rocks seventy feet below and demurred.
56 THE LITTLE LADY

" There's room on the trestle," he said; " but

what if the train starts up ? "
" It ain't goin' to start — beat it while you got
time," the brakeman insisted. " The engine's takin'
water at the other side. She always takes it
here."
But for once the engine did not take water. The
evidence at the inquest developed that the engineer
had found no water in the tank and started on.
Scarcely had the two boys dropped from the side-
door of the box-car, and before they had made a
score of steps along the narrow way between the train
and the abyss, than the train began to move. Young
Dick, quick and sure in all his perceptions and adjust-
ments, dropped on the instant to hands and knees on
the trestle. This gave him better holding and more
space, because he crouched beneath the overhang of
the box-cars. Tim, not so quick in perceiving and
adjusting, also overcome with Celtic rage at the
brakeman, instead of dropping to hands and knees,
remained upright to flare his opinion of the brake-
man, to the brakeman, in lurid and ancestral terms.
" Get down ! — drop ! " Young Dick shouted.
But the opportunity had passed. On a down
grade, the engine picked up the train rapidly. Fac-
ing the moving cars, with empty air at his back and
the depth beneath, Tim tried to drop on hands and
knees. But the first twist of his shoulders brought
him in contact with the car and nearly out-balanced
him. By a miracle he recovered equilibrium. But
he stood upright. The train was moving faster and
faster. It was impossible to get down.
Young Dick, kneeling and holding, watched. The
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 57

train gathered way. The cars moved more swiftly.

Tim, with a cool head, his back to the fall, his face
to the passing cars, his arms by his sides, with no-
where save under his feet a holding point, balanced
and swayed. The faster the train moved, the wider
he swayed, until, exerting his will, he controlled him-
self and ceased from swaying.
And all would have been well with him, had it not
been for one car. Young Dick knew it, and saw it
coming. It was a " palace horse-car," projecting six
inches wider than any car on the train. He saw Tim
see it coming. He saw Tim steel himself to meet
the abrupt subtraction of half a foot from the nar-
row space wherein he balanced. He saw Tim
slowly and deliberately sway out, sway out to the
extremest limit, and yet not sway out far enough.
The thing was physically inevitable. An inch more,
and Tim would have escaped the car. An inch more
and he would have fallen without impact from the
car. It caught him, in that margin of an inch, and
hurled him backward and side-twisting. Twice he
whirled sidewise, and two and a half times he turned
over, ere he struck on his head and neck on the
rocks.
He never moved after he struck. The seventy-
foot fall broke his neck and crushed his skull. And
right there Young Dick learned death — not the or-
dered, decent death of civilization, wherein doctors
and nurses and hypodermics ease the stricken one into
the darkness, and ceremony and function and flowers
and undertaking institutions conspire to give a happy
leave-taking and send-off to the departing shade, but
sudden death, primitive death, ugly and ungarnished,
 58 THE LITTLE LADY

like the death of a steer in the shambles or a fat

swine stuck in the jugular.
And right there Young Dick learned more —the
mischance of life and fate; the universe hostile to
man ; the need to perceive and to act, to see and know,
to be sure and quick, to adjust instantly to all instant
i
shiftage of the balance of forces that bear upon the
living. And right there, beside the strangely crum-
pled and shrunken remnant of what had been his com-
rade the moment before, Young Dick learned that
illusion must be discounted, and that reality never
lied.

In New Mexico, Young Dick drifted into the

Jingle-bob Ranch, north of Roswell, in the Pecos
Valley. He was not yet fourteen, and he was ac-
cepted as the mascot of the ranch and made into a
" sure-enough " cowboy by cowboys who, on legal
papers, legally signed names such as Wild Horse,
Willie Buck, Boomer Deacon, and High Pockets.
Here, during a stay of six months, Young Dick,
soft of frame and unbreakable, achieved a knowl-
edge of horses and horsemanship, and of men in the
rough and raw, that became a life asset. More he
learned. There was John Chisum, owner of the
Jingle-bob, the Bosque Grande, and of other cattle
ranches as far away as the Black River and beyond.
John Chisum was a cattle king who had foreseen the
coming of the farmer and adjusted from the open
range to barbed wire, and who, in order to do so,
had purchased every forty acres carrying water and
got for nothing the use of the millions of acres of
adjacent range that was worthless without the water
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 59

he controlled. And in the talk by the camp-fire and

chuck wagon, among forty-dollar-a-month cowboys
who had not foreseen what John Chisum foresaw,
Young Dick learned precisely why and how John
Chisum had become a cattle king while a thousand
of his contemporaries worked for him on wages.
But Young Dick was no cool-head. His blood
was hot. He had passion, and fire, and male pride.
Ready to cry from twenty hours in the saddle, he
learned to ignore the thousand aching creaks in his
body and with the stoic brag of silence to withstrain
from his blankets until the hard-bitten punchers led
the way. By the same token he straddled the horse
that was apportioned him, insisted on riding night-
herd, and knew no hint of uncertainty when it came
to him to turn the flank of a stampede with a flying
slicker. He could take a chance. It was his joy
to take a chance. But at such times he never failed
of due respect for reality. He was well aware that
men were soft-shelled and cracked easily on hard
rocks or under pounding hoofs. And when he re-
jected a mount that tangled its legs in quick action
and stumbled, it was not because he feared to be
cracked, but because, when he took a chance on being
cracked, he wanted, as he told John Chisum himself,
“
an even break for his money."
It was while at the Jingle-bob, but mailed by a cat-
tleman from Chicago, that Young Dick wrote a let-
ter to his guardians. Even then, so careful was he,
that the envelope was addressed to Ah Sing.
Though unburdened by his twenty millions, Young
Dick never forgot them, and, fearing his estate might
be distributed among remote relatives who might
60 THE LITTLE LADY

possibly inhabit New England, he warned his guard-

ians that he was still alive and that he would return
home in several years. Also, he ordered them to
keep Mrs. Summerstone on at her regular salary.
But Young Dick's feet itched. Half a year, he
felt, was really more than he should have spent at
the Jingle-bob. As a boy hobo, or road-kid, he
drifted on across the United States, getting ac-
quainted with its peace officers, police judges, vag-
rancy laws, and jails. And he learned vagrants
themselves at first hand, and floating laborers and
petty criminals. Among other things, he got ac-
quainted with farms and farmers, and, in New York
State, once picked berries for a week with a Dutch
farmer who was experimenting with one of the first
silos erected in the United States. Nothing of what
he learned came to him in the spirit of research. He
had merely the human boy's curiosity about all
things, and he gained merely a huge mass of data
concerning human nature and social conditions that
was to stand him in good stead in later years, when,
with the aid of the books, he digested and classified
it.
His adventures did not harm him. Even when
he consorted with jail-birds in jungle camps, and
listened to their codes of conduct and measurements
of life, he was not affected. He was a traveler, and
they were alien breeds. Secure in the knowledge of
his twenty millions, there was neither need nor temp-
tation for him to steal or rob. All things and all
places interested him, but he never found a place
nor a situation that could hold him. He wanted to
see, to see more and more, and to go on seeing.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 61

At the end of three years, nearly sixteen, hard of

body, weighing a hundred and thirty pounds, he
judged it time to go home and open the books. So
he took his first long voyage, signing on as boy on a
windjammer bound around the Horn from the Dela-
ware Breakwater to San Francisco. It was a hard
voyage, of one hundred and eighty days, but at the
end he weighed ten pounds the more for having
made it.
Mrs. Summerstone screamed when he walked in on
her, and Ah Sing had to be called from the kitchen to
identify him. Mrs. Summerstone screamed a second
time. It was when she shook hands with him and
lacerated her tender skin in the fisty grip of his rope-
calloused palms.
He was shy, almost embarrassed, as he greeted his
guardians at the hastily summoned meeting. But
this did not prevent him from talking straight to the
point.
" It's this way," he said. " I am not a fool. I
know what I want, and I want what I want. I am
alone in the world, outside of good friends like you ,
of course, and I have my own ideas of the world and
what I want to do in it. I didn't come home be-
cause of a sense of duty to anybody here. I came
home because it was time, because of my sense of duty
to myself. I'm all the better from my three years
of wandering about, and now it's up to me to go on
with my education — my book education, I mean."
" The Belmont Academy," Mr. Slocum suggested.
" That will fit you for the university—"
Dick shook his head decidedly.
" And take three years to do it. So would a high
62 THE LITTLE LADY

school. I intend to be in the University of Cali-

fornia inside one year. That means work. But my
mind's like acid. It'll bite into the books. I shall
hire a coach, or half a dozen of them, and go to it.
And I'll hire my coaches myself — hire and fire
them. And that means money to handle."
" A hundred a month," Mr. Crockett suggested.
Dick shook his head.
" I've taken care of myself for three years without
any of my money. I guess I can take care of myself
along with some of my money here in San Francisco.
I don't care to handle my business affairs yet, but I
do want a bank account, a respectable-sized one. I
want to spend it as I see fit, for what I see fit."
The guardians looked their dismay at one another.
" It's ridiculous, impossible," Mr. Crockett began.
" You are as unreasonable as you were before you
went away."
" It's my way, I guess," Dick sighed. " The other
disagreement was over my money. It was a hun-
dred dollars I wanted then."
" Think of our position, Dick," Mr. Davidson
urged. " As your guardians, how would it be looked
upon if we gave you, a lad of sixteen, a free hand
with money."
" What's the Freda worth, right now ? " Dick de-
manded irrelevantly.
" Can sell for twenty thousand any time," Mr.
Crockett answered.
" Then sell her. She's too large for me, and she's
worth less every year. I want a thirty-footer that I
can handle myself for knocking around the Bay, and
that won't cost a thousand. Sell the Freda and put
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 63

the money to my account. Now what you three are

afraid of is that I'll misspend my money — taking to
drinking, horse-racing, and running around with
chorus girls. Here's my proposition to make you
easy on that: let it be a drawing account for the four
of us. The moment any of you decide I am mis-
spending, that moment you can draw out the total
balance. I may as well tell you, that just as a side
line I'm going to get a business college expert to
come here and cram me with the mechanical side of
the business game."
Dick did not wait for their acquiescence, but went
on as from a matter definitely settled.
" How about the horses down at Menlo ? — never
mind, I'll look them over and decide what to keep.
Mrs. Summerstone will stay on here in charge of the
house, because I've got too much work mapped out
for myself already. I promise you you won't regret
giving me a free hand with my directly personal af-
fairs. And now, if you want to hear about the last
three years, I'll spin the yarn for you."

Dick Forrest had been right when he told his

guardians that his mind was acid and would bite into
the books. Never was there such an education, and
he directed it himself -
but not without advice. He
had learned the trick of hiring brains from his father
and from John Chisum of the Jingle-bob. He had
learned to sit silent and to think while cow men talked
long about the campfire and the chuck wagon. And,
by virtue of name and place, he sought and obtained
interviews with professors and college presidents and
practical men of affairs ; and he listened to their talk
64 THE LITTLE LADY

through many hours, scarcely speaking, rarely asking

a question, merely listening to the best they had to
offer, content to receive from several such hours one
idea, one fact, that would help him to decide what
sort of an education he would go in for and how.
Then came the engaging of coaches. Never was
there such an engaging and discharging, such a hiring
and firing. He was not frugal in the matter. For
one that he retained a month, or three months, he
discharged a dozen on the first day, or the first week.
And invariably he paid such dischargees a full month
although their attempts to teach him might not have
consumed an hour. He did such things fairly and
grandly, because he could afford to be fair and grand.
He, who had eaten the leavings from firemen's
pails in round-houses and " scoffed " mulligan-stews
at water-tanks, had learned thoroughly the worth of
money. He bought the best with the sure knowl-
edge that it was the cheapest. Ayear of high school
physics and a year of high school chemistry were
necessary to enter the university. When he had
crammed his algebra and geometry, he sought out the
heads of the physics and chemistry departments in the
University of California. Professor Carey laughed
at him ... at the first.
66
My dear boy," Professor Carey began.
Dick waited patiently till he was through. Then
Dick began, and concluded.
" I'm not a fool, Professor Carey. High school
and academy students are children. They don't
know the world. They don't know what they want,
or why they want what is ladled out to them. I know
the world. I know what I want and why I want it.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 65

They do physics for an hour, twice a week, for two

terms, which, with two vacations, occupy one year.
You are the top teacher on the Pacific Coast in phys-
ics. The college year is just ending. In the first
week of your vacation, giving every minute of your
time to me, I can get the year's physics. What is
that week worth to you ? "
" You couldn't buy it for a thousand dollars," Pro-
fessor Carey rejoined, thinking he had settled the
matter.

" I know what your salary is " Dick began.

" What is it ?" Professor Carey demanded
sharply.
" It's not a thousand a week," Dick retorted as
sharply. " It's not five hundred a week, nor two-
fifty a week -" He held up his hand to stall off
interruption. " You've just told me I couldn't buy
a week of your time for a thousand dollars. I'm
not going to. But I am going to buy that week for
two thousand. Heavens ! — I've only got so many
years to live "
" And you can buy years ? " Professor Carey
queried slyly.
" Sure. That's why I'm here. I buy three years
in one, and the week from you is part of the deal. "
" But I have not accepted," Professor Carey
laughed.
" If the sum is not sufficient," Dick said stiffly,
" why name the sum you consider fair."
And Professor Carey surrendered. So did Pro-
fessor Barsdale, head of the department of chem-
istry.
Already had Dick taken his coaches in mathe
66 THE LITTLE LADY

matics duck hunting for weeks in the sloughs of the

Sacramento and the San Joaquin. After his bout
with physics and chemistry he took his two coaches
in literature and history into the Curry County hunt-
ing region of southwestern Oregon. He had
learned the trick from his father, and he worked,
and played, lived in the open air, and did three con-
ventional years of adolescent education in one year
without straining himself. He fished, hunted, swam,
exercised, and equipped himself for the university at
the same time. And he made no mistake. He knew
that he did it because his father's twenty millions
had invested him with mastery. Money was a tool.
He did not over-rate it, nor under-rate it. He used
it to buy what he wanted.
" The weirdest form of dissipation I ever heard,"
said Mr. Crockett, holding up Dick's account for the
year. " Sixteen thousand for education, all item-
ized, including railroad fares, porters ' tips, and shot-
gun cartridges for his teachers."
" He passed the examinations just the same,"
quoth Mr. Slocum.
" And in a year," growled Mr. Davidson. " My
daughter's boy entered Belmont at the same time,
and, if he's lucky, it will be two years yet before he
enters the university."
" Well, all I've got to say," proclaimed Mr.
Crockett, " is that from now on what that boy says
in the matter of spending his money goes."
" And now I'll have a snap," Dick told his guard-
ians. " Here I am, neck and neck again, and years
ahead of them in knowledge of the world. Why, I
know things, good and bad, big and little, about men
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 67

and women and life that sometimes I almost doubt

myself that they're true. But I know them.
" From now on, I'm not going to rush. I've
caught up, and I'm going through regular. All I
have to do is to keep the speed of the classes, and
I'll be graduated when I'm twenty-one. From now
on I'll need less money for education — no more
coaches, you know and more money for a good
-

time."
Mr. Davidson was suspicious.
" What do you mean by a good time ? "
" Oh, I'm going in for the frats, for football, hold
my own, you know -

and I'm interested in gasoline

engines. I'm going to build the first ocean-going
gasoline yacht in the world —"
" You'll blow yourself up," Mr. Crockett de-
murred. " It's a fool notion all these cranks are
rushing into over gasoline."
" I'll make myself safe," Dick answered, " and
that means experimenting, and it means money, so
keep me a good drawing account — same old way —

all four of us can draw."

 CHAPTER VI

ICK FORREST proved himself no prodigy

D atturesthetheuniversity, save that he cut more lec-
first year than any other student.
The reason for this was that he did not need the
lectures he cut, and he knew it. His coaches, while
preparing him for the entrance examinations, had car-
ried him nearly through the first college year. Inci-
dentally, he made the Freshman team, a very scrub
team, that was beaten by every high school and acad-
emy it played against.
But Dick did put in work that nobody saw. His
collateral reading was wide and deep, and when he
went on his first summer cruise in the ocean-going
gasoline yacht he had built no gay young crowd ac-
companied him. Instead, his guests, with their fami-
lies, were professors of literature, history, juris-
prudence, and philosophy. It was long remembered
in the university as the " high-brow " cruise. The
professors, on their return, reported a most enjoyable
time. Dick returned with a greater comprehension
of the general fields of the particular professors than
he could have gained in years at their class-lectures .
And time thus gained, enabled him to continue to cut
lectures and to devote more time to laboratory work.
Nor did he miss having his good college time.
College widows made love to him, and college girls
68
L

THE LITTLE LADY

69
loved him, and he was indefatigable in his dancing.
He never cut a smoker, a beer bust, or a rush, and he
toured the Pacific Coast with the Banjo and Mando-
lin Club.
And yet he was no prodigy. He was brilliant
at nothing. Half a dozen of his fellows could out-
banjo and out-mandolin him. A dozen fellows were
adjudged better dancers than he. In football, and he
gained the Varsity in his Sophomore year, he was
considered a solid and dependable player, and that
was all. It seemed never his luck to take the ball
andgo down the length of the field while the Blue and
Gold host tore itself and the grandstand to pieces .
But it was at the end of heart-breaking, grueling slog
in mud and rain, the score tied, the second half im-
minent to its close, Stanford on the five-yard line,
Berkeley's ball, with two downs and three yards to
gain— it was then that the Blue and Gold arose and
chanted its demand for Forrest to hit the center and
hit it hard.
He never achieved super-excellence at anything.
Big Charley Everson drank him down at the beer
busts. Harrison Jackson, at hammer-throwing, al-
ways exceeded his best by twenty feet. Carruthers
out-pointed him at boxing. Anson Burge could al-
ways put his shoulders to the mat, two out of three,
but always only by the hardest work. In English
composition a fifth of his class excelled him. Edlin,
the Russian Jew, out-debated him on the contention
that property was robbery. Schultz and Debret left
ma
himwith the class behind in higher thematics; and
Ots uki the Japane wa beyond all comparison with
him in, chemistry. se, s
70 THE LITTLE LADY

But if Dick Forrest did not excel at anything, he

failed in nothing. He displayed no superlative
strength, he betrayed no weakness nor deficiency. As
he told his guardians, who, by his unrelenting good
conduct had been led into dreaming some great career
for him; as he told them, when they asked what he
wanted to become :
66

Nothing. Just all around. You see, I don't

have to be a specialist. My father arranged that for
me when he left me his money. Besides, I couldn't
be a specialist if I wanted to. It isn't me."
And thus so well-keyed was he, that he expressed
clearly his key. He had no flare for anything. He
was that rare individual, normal, average, balanced,
all-around .
When Mr. Davidson, in the presence of his fellow
guardians, stated his pleasure in that Dick had shown
no wildness since he had settled down, Dick replied :
" Oh, I can hold myself when I want to."
" Yes, " said Mr. Slocum gravely. " It's the finest
thing in the world that you sowed your wild oats
early and learned control."
Dick looked at him curiously.
66

Why, that boyish adventure doesn't count," he

said. " That wasn't wildness. I haven't gone wild
yet. But watch me when I start. Do you know
Kipling's ' Song of Diego Valdez' ? Let me quote
you a bit of it. You see, Diego Valdez, like me,
had good fortune. He rose so fast to be High Ad-
miral of Spain that he found no time to take the
pleasure he had merely tasted. He was lusty and
husky, but he had no time, being too busy rising.
But always, he thought, he fooled himself with the
 OF THE BIG HOUSE
71
thought, that his lustiness and huskiness would last,
and, after he became High Admiral he could then
have his pleasure. Always he remembered :
" ' comrades —
Old playmates on new seas
When as we traded orpiment
Among the savages —
A thousand leagues to south'ard
And thirty years removed
They knew not noble Valdez,
But me they knew and loved.
"" Then they that found good liquor
They drank it not alone,
And they that found fair plunder,
They told us every one,
Behind our chosen islands
Or secret shoals between,
When, walty from far voyage,
We gathered to careen.
" " There burned our breaming-fagots ,
All pale along the shore :
There rose our worn pavilions —
A sail above an oar :
As flashed each yearning anchor
Through mellow seas afire,
So swift our careless captains
Rowed each to his desire.

"" Where lay our loosened harness ?

Where turned our naked feet ?
Whose tavern mid the palm-trees ?
What quenchings of what heat ?
Oh fountain in the desert !
Oh cistern in the waste !
Oh bread we ate in secret !
Oh cup we spilled in haste !
72 THE LITTLE LADY

" The youth new-taught of longing,

The widow curbed and wan —
The goodwife proud at season,
And the maid aware of man ;
All souls, unslaked, consuming,
Defrauded in delays,
Desire not more than quittance
Than I those forfeit days l '
" Oh, get him, get him, you three oldsters, as I've
got him ! Get what he says next :
"" I dreamed to wait my pleasure,
Unchanged my spring would bide:
Wherefore, to wait my pleasure,
I put my spring aside,
Till, first in face of Fortune,
And last in mazed disdain,
I made Diego Valdez
High Admiral of Spain ! '

" Listen to me, guardians ! " Dick cried on, his

face a flame of passion. " Don't forget for one
moment that I am anything but unslaked, consuming.
I am. I burn. But I hold myself. Don't think
I am a dead one because I am a darn nice, meritori-
ous boy at college. I am young. I am alive. I
am all lusty and husky. But I make no mistake.
I hold myself. I don't start out now to blow up on
the first lap. I am just getting ready. I am going
to have my time. I am not going to spill my cup in
haste. And in the end I am not going to lament as
Diego Valdez did :
"" There walks no wind 'neath heaven
Nor wave that shall restore
The old careening riot
And the clamorous, crowded shore-
 OF THE BIG HOUSE
73

The fountain in the desert,

The cistern in the waste,
The bread we ate in secret,
The cup we spilled in haste.'
" Listen, guardians ! Do you know what it is to
hit your man , to hit him in hot blood -

square to the
jaw— and drop him cold ? I want that . And I
want to love, and kiss , and risk, and play the lusty,
husky fool. I want to take my chance. I want my
careening riot, and I want it while I am young, but
not while I am too young. And I'm going to have
it. And in the meantime I play the game at college,
I hold myself, I equip myself, so that when I turn
loose I am going to have the best chance of my best .
Oh, believeme, I do not always sleep well of nights ."
" You mean ? ” queried Mr. Crockett .
" Sure . That's just what I mean. I haven't
gone wild yet, but just watch me when I start."
"Andyou will start when you graduate ? "
The remarkable youngster shook his head.
" After I graduate I'm going to take at least a
year of post-graduate courses in the College of Ag-
ing. I want to do somedeve
riculture. You see, I'm
thinloping a hobby— farm-
g ...
something con-
structive. My father wasn't constructive to amount
to anything. Neither were you fellows. You struck
a new land in pioneer days , and you picked up money
like a lot of sailors shaking out nuggets from the
grass roots in a virgin placer—"
" My lad, I've some little experience in Cali-
for
wa
nian farming," Mr. Crockett interrupted in a hurt
y.
"Sure you have, but you weren't constructive.
74 THE LITTLE LADY

You were — well, facts are facts -

you were de-

structive. You were a bonanza farmer. What did
you do ? You took forty thousand acres of the finest
Sacramento Valley soil and you grew wheat on it
year after year. You never dreamed of rotation.
You burned your straw. You exhausted your hu-
mus .
You plowed four inches and put a plow-sole
like a cement sidewalk just four inches under the
surface. You exhausted that film of four inches and
now you can't get your seed back.
" You've destroyed. That's what my father did.
They all did it. Well, I'm going to take my father's
money and construct. I'm going to take worked-out
wheat-land that I can buy as at a fire-sale, rip out the
plow-sole, and make it produce more in the end than
it did when you fellows first farmed it."
It was at the end of his Junior year that Mr.
Crockett again mentioned Dick's threatened period
ofwildness.
" Soon as I'm done with cow college," was his
answer. " Then I'm going to buy, and stock, and
start a ranch that'll be a ranch. And then I'll set out
after my careening riot."
" About how large a ranch will you start with ? "
Mr. Davidson asked.
“
Maybe fifty thousand acres, maybe five hundred
thousand. It all depends. I'm going to play un-
earned increment to the limit. People haven't be-
gun to come to California yet. Without a tap of my
hand or a turn over, fifteen years from now land that
I can buy for ten dollars an acre will be worth fifty,
and what I can buy for fifty will be worth five hun-
dred."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 75

" A half million acres at ten dollars an acre means

five million dollars," Mr. Crockett warned gravely.
" And at fifty it means twenty-five million," Dick
laughed.
But his guardians never believed in the wild oats
pilgrimage he threatened. He might waste his for-
tune on new-fangled farming, but to go literally wild
after such years of self-restraint was an unthinkable
thing.
Dick took his sheepskin with small honor. He
was twenty-eighth in his class, and he had not set the
college world afire. His most notable achievement
had been his resistance and bafflement of many nice
girls and of the mothers of many nice girls. Next,
after that, he had signalized his Senior year by cap-
taining the Varsity to its first victory over Stanford
in five years. It was in the day prior to large-
salaried football coaches, when individual play meant
much; but he hammered team-work and the sacrifice
of the individual into his team, so that on Thanksgiv-
ing Day, over a vastly more brilliant eleven, the
Blue and Gold was able to serpentine its triumph
down Market Street in San Francisco .
In his post-graduate year in cow college, Dick de-
voted himself to laboratory work and cut all lectures .
In fact, he hired his own lecturers, and spent a siz-
able fortune on them in mere traveling expenses over
California. Jacques Ribot, esteemed one of the
greatest world authorities on agricultural chemistry,
who had been seduced from his two thousand a year
in France by the six thousand offered by the Uni-
versity of California, who had been seduced to Ha-
waii by the ten thousand of the sugar planters, Dick
76 THE LITTLE LADY

Forrest seduced with fifteen thousand and the more

delectable temperate climate of California on a five
years' contract.
Messrs. Crockett, Slocum, and Davidson threw up
their hands in horror and knew that this was the
wild career Dick Forrest had forecast.
But this was only one of Dick Forrest's similar dis-
sipations. He stole from the Federal Government,
at a prodigal increase of salary, its star specialist
in livestock breeding, and by similar misconduct he
robbed the University of Nebraska of its greatest
milch cow professor, and broke the heart of the Dean
of the College of Agriculture of the University of
California by appropriating Professor Nirdenham-
mer, the wizard of farm management.
66

Cheap at the price, cheap at the price," Dick

explained to his guardians. " Wouldn't you rather
see me spend my money in buying professors than in
buying race horses and actresses ? Besides, the
trouble with you fellows is that you don't know the
game of buying brains. I do. That's my specialty.
I'm going to make money out of them, and, better
than that, I'm going to make a dozen blades of grass
grow where you fellows didn't leave room for half
a blade in the soil you gutted."
So it can be understood how his guardians could
not believe in his promise of wild career, of kissing
and risking, and hitting men hot on the jaw.
" One year more," he warned, while he delved in
agricultural chemistry, soil analysis, farm manage-
ment, and traveled California with his corps of high-
salaried experts. And his guardians could only ap-
prehend a swift and wide dispersal of the Forrest
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 77

millions when Dick attained his majority, took charge

of the totality of his fortune, and actually embarked
onhis agricultural folly.
The day he was twenty-one the purchase of his
principality, that extended west from the Sacramento
River to the mountain tops, was consummated.
" An incredible price," said Mr. Crockett.
" Incredibly cheap," said Dick. " You ought to
see my soil reports. You ought to see my water-re-
ports. And you ought to hear me sing. Listen,
guardians, to a song that is a true song. I am the
singer and the song."
Whereupon, in the queer quavering falsetto that is
the sense of song to the North American Indian, the
Eskimo, and the Mongol, Dick sang :
" Hu'-tim yo'-kim koi-o-di' !
Wi'-hi yan'-ning koi-o-di' !
Lo'-whi yan'-ning koi-o-di' !
Yo-ho' Nai-ni' , hal-u'-dom yo nai, yo-ho" nai-
nim' l "

"The music is my own," he murmured apologeti-

cally, " the way I think it ought to have sounded.
You see, no man lives who ever heard it sung. The
Nishinam got it from the Maidu, who got it from the
Konkau, who made it. But the Nishinam and the
Maidu and the Konkau are gone . Their last ranch-
eria is not. You plowed it under, Mr. Crockett,
with you bonanza gang-plowing, plow-soling farm-
ing. And I got the song from a certain ethnological
report, volume three, of the United States Pacific
Coast Geographical and Geological Survey. Red
Cloud, who was formed out of the sky, first sang this
78 THE LITTLE LADY

song to the stars and the mountain flowers in the

morning of the world. I shall now sing it for you
in English."
And again, in Indian falsetto, ringing with tri-
umph, vernal and bursting, slapping his thighs and
stamping his feet to the accent, Dick sang :
" The acorns come down from heaven !
I plant the short acorns in the valley !
I plant the long acorns in the valley !
I sprout, I, the black-oak acorn, sprout, I sprout ! "
Dick Forrest's name began to appear in the news-
papers with appalling frequency. He leaped to in-
stant fame by being the first man in California who
paid ten thousand dollars for a single bull. His
livestock specialist, whom he had filched from the
Federal Government, in England outbid the Roths-
childs' Shire farm for Hillcrest Chieftain, quickly
to be known as Forrest's Folly, paying for that
kingly animal no less than five thousand guineas.
" Let them laugh," Dick told his ex-guardians.
" I am importing forty Shire mares. I'll write off
half his price the first twelvemonth. He will be the
sire and grandsire of many sons and grandsons for
which the Californians will fall over themselves to
buy of me at from three to five thousand dollars a
clatter."
Dick Forrest was guilty of many similar follies in
those first months of his majority. But the most
unthinkable folly of all was, after he had sunk mil-
lions into his original folly, that he turned it over to
his experts personally to develop along the general
broad lines laid down by him, placed checks upon
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 79

them that they might not go catastrophically wrong,

bought a ticket in a passenger brig to Tahiti, and
went away to run wild.
Occasionally his guardians heard from him. At
one time he was owner and master of a four-masted
steel sailing ship that carried the English flag and
coals from Newcastle. They knew that much, be-
cause they had been called upon for the purchase
price, because they read Dick's name in the papers
as master when his ship rescued the passengers of
the ill-fated Orion, and because they collected the in-
surance when Dick's ship was lost with most of all
hands in the great Fiji hurricane. In 1896, he was
in the Klondike ; in 1897, he was in Kamchatka and
scurvy-stricken ; and, next, he erupted with the Ameri-
can flag into the Philippines. Once, although they
could never learn how nor why, he was owner and
master of a crazy tramp steamer, long since rejected
by Lloyd's, which sailed under the ægis of Siam.
From time to time business correspondence com-
pelled them to hear from him from various purple
ports of the purple seas. Once, they had to bring
the entire political pressure of the Pacific Coast to
bear upon Washington in order to get him out of a
scrape in Russia, of which affair not one line appeared
in the daily press, but which affair was secretly pro-
vocative of ticklish joy and delight in all the chancel-
lories of Europe.
Incidentally, they knew that he lay wounded in
Mafeking; that he pulled through a bout with yellow
fever in Guayaquil; and that he stood trial for bru-
tality on the high seas in New York City. Thrice ,
they read in the press dispatches that he was dead :
80 THE LITTLE LADY

once, in battle, in Mexico; and twice, executed, in

Venezuela. After such false flutterings, his guard-
ians refused longer to be thrilled when he crossed
the Yellow Sea in a sampan, was " rumored " to have
died of beri-beri, was captured from the Russians by
the Japanese at Mukden, and endured military im-
prisonment in Japan.
The one thrill of which they were still capable,
was when, true to promise, thirty years of age, his
wild oats sown, he returned to California with a wife
to whom, as he announced, he had been married sev-
eral years, and whom all his three guardians found
they knew. Mr. Slocum had dropped eight hundred
thousand along with the totality of her father's for-
tune in the final catastrophe at the Los Cocos mine in
Chihuahua when the United States demonetized sil-
ver. Mr. Davidson had pulled a million out of the
Last Stake along with her father when he pulled eight
millions from that sunken, man-resurrected, river
bed in Amador County. Mr. Crockett, a youth at
the time, had " spooned " the Merced bottom with
her father in the late ' fifties, had stood up best man
with him at Stockton when he married her mother,
and, at Grant's Pass, had played poker with him and
with the then Lieutenant U. S. Grant when all the
little the western world knew of that young lieuten-
ant was that he was a good Indian fighter but a poor
poker player.
And Dick Forrest had married the daughter of
Philip Desten ! It was not a case of wishing Dick
luck. It was a case of garrulous insistence on the
fact that he did not know how lucky he was . His
guardians forgave him all his wildness. He had
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 81

made good. At last he had performed a purely ra-

tional act. Better; it was a stroke of genius. Paula
Desten! Philip Desten's daughter! The Desten
blood! The Destens and the Forrests ! It was
enough. The three aged comrades of Forrest and
Desten of the old Gold Days, of the two who had
played and passed on, were even severe with Dick.
They warned him of the extreme value of his treas-
ure, of the sacred duty such wedlock imposed on him,
of all the traditions and virtues of the Desten and
Forrest blood, until Dick laughed and broke in with
the disconcerting statement that they were talking
like a bunch of fanciers or eugenics cranks — which
was precisely what they were talking like, although
they did not care to be told so crassly.
At any rate, the simple fact that he had married
a Desten made them nod unqualified approbation
when he showed them the plans and building esti-
mates of the Big House. Thanks to Paula Desten,
for once they were agreed that he was spending
wisely and well. As for his farming, it was incon-
testible that the Harvest Group was unfalteringly
producing, and he might be allowed his hobbies.
Nevertheless, as Mr. Slocum put it: " Twenty-five
thousand dollars for a mere work-horse stallion is a
madness . Work-horses are work-horses ; now had
it been running stock. ..
."
 CHAPTER VII

HILE Dick Forrest scanned the pamphlet

W on hog cholera issued by the State of Iowa,
through his open windows, across the wide
court, began to come sounds of the awakening of the
girl who laughed from the wooden frame by his
bed and who had left on the floor of his sleeping
porch, not so many hours before, the rosy, filmy,
lacy, boudoir cap so circumspectly rescued by Oh My.
Dick heard her voice, for she awoke, like a bird,
with song. He heard her trilling, in and out through
open windows, all down the long wing that was hers.
And he heard her singing in the patio garden, where,
also, she desisted long enough to quarrel with her
Airedale and scold the collie pup unholily attracted
by the red-orange, divers-finned, and many-tailed
Japanese goldfish in the fountain basin.
He was aware of pleasure that she was awake.
It was a pleasure that never staled. Always , up
himself for hours, he had a sense that the Big House
was not really awake until he heard Paula's morning
song across the patio.
But having tasted the pleasure of knowing her to
be awake, Dick, as usual, forgot her in his own af-
fairs. She went out of his consciousness as he be-
came absorbed again in the Iowa statistics on hog
cholera.
82
 THE LITTLE LADY 83

" Good morning, MerryGentleman," was the next

he heard, always adorable music in his ears ; and
Paula flowed in upon him, all softness of morning
kimono and stayless body, as her arm passed around
his neck and she perched, half in his arms, on one
accommodating knee of his. And he pressed her,
and advertised his awareness of her existence and
nearness, although his eyes lingered a full half min-
ute longer on the totals of results of Professor
Kenealy's hog inoculations on Simon Jones' farm at
Washington, Iowa .
" My! " she protested. " You are too fortunate.
You are sated with riches. Here is your Lady Boy,
your ' little haughty moon,' and you haven't even
said, ' Good morning, Little Lady Boy, was your
sleep sweet and gentle ? ' "
And Dick Forrest forsook the statistical columns
of Professor Kenealy's inoculations, pressed his wife
closer, kissed her, but with insistent right fore-finger
maintained his place in the pages of the pamphlet.
Nevertheless, the very terms of her reproof pre-
vented him from asking what he should have asked
—the prosperity of her night since the boudoir cap
had been left upon his sleeping porch. He shut the
pamphlet on his right fore-finger, at the place he in-
tended to resume, and added his right arm to his left
about her.
" Oh ! " she cried. " Oh ! Oh ! Listen ! "
From without came the flute-calls of quail. She
quivered against him with the joy she took in the
mellow-sweet notes.
" The coveys are breaking up," he said.
" It means spring," Paula cried.
84 THE LITTLE LADY

" And the sign that good weather has come."

" And love ! "
" And nest-building and egg-laying," Dick laughed.
" Never has the world seemed more fecund than this
morning. Lady Isleton is farrowed of eleven. The
angoras were brought down this morning for the
kidding. You should have seen them. And the
wild canaries have been discussing matrimony in the
patio for hours. I think some free lover is trying
to break up their monogamic heaven with modern
love-theories. It's a wonder you slept through the
discussion. Listen ! There they go now. Isthat
applause ? Or is it a riot ? "
Arose a thin twittering, like elfin pipings, with
sharp pitches and excited shrillnesses, to which Dick
and Paula lent delighted ears, till, suddenly, with
the abruptness of the trump of doom, all the micro-
phonic chorus of the tiny golden lovers was swept
away, obliterated, in a Gargantuan blast of sound —
no less wild, no less musical, no less passionate with
love, but immense, dominant, compelling by very
vastitude of volume.
The eager eyes of the man and woman sought in-
stantly the channel past open French windows and
the screen of the sleeping porch to the road through
the lilacs, while they waited breathlessly for the,
great stallion to appear who trumpeted his love-call
before him. Again, unseen, he trumpeted, and Dick
said:
" I will sing you a song, my haughty moon. It
is not my song. It is the Mountain Lad's. It is
what he nickers. Listen ! He sings it again. This
is what he says : ' Hear me ! I am Eros. I stamp
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 85

upon the hills. I fill the wide valleys. The mares

hear me, and startle, in quiet pastures; for they know
me. The grass grows rich and richer, the land is
filled with fatness, and the sap is in the trees. It is
the spring. The spring is mine. I am monarch of
my kingdom of the spring. The mares remember my
voice. Theyknow me aforetime through their moth-
ers before them. Hear me ! I am Eros. I stamp
upon the hills, and the wide valleys are my heralds,
echoing the sound of my approach. ' "
And Paula pressed closer to her husband, and was
pressed, as her lips touched his forehead, and as
the pair of them, gazing at the empty road among
the lilacs, saw it filled with the eruptive vision of
Mountain Lad, majestic and mighty, the gnat-crea-
ture of a man upon his back absurdly small; his eyes
wild and desirous, with the blue sheen that surfaces
the eyes of stallions; his mouth, flecked with the
froth and fret of high spirit, now brushed to bur-
nished knees of impatience, now tossed skyward to
utterance of that vast, compelling call that shook the
air.
Almost as an echo, from afar off, came a thin-
sweet answering whinney.
" It is the Fotherington Princess," Paula breathed
softly.
Again Mountain Lad trumpeted his call, and Dick
chanted :
"Hear me ! I am Eros ! I stamp upon the
hills!"
And almost, for a flash of an instant, circled soft
and close in his arms, Paula knew resentment of her
husband's admiration for the splendid beast. And
86 THE LITTLE LADY

the next instant resentment vanished, and, in acknowl-

edgment of due debt, she cried gaily :
" And now, Red Cloud ! the Song of the Acorn ! "
Dick glanced half absently to her from the pam-
phlet folded on his finger, and then, with equal pitch
of gaiety, sang :
" The acorns come down from heaven !
I plant the short acorns in the valley !
I plant the long acorns in the valley !
I sprout, I, the black-oak acorn, sprout, I sprout ! "

She had impressed herself very close against him

during his moment of chanting, but, in the first mo-
ments that succeeded she felt the restless movement
of the hand that held the finger-marked hog-pam-
phlet and caught the swift though involuntary flash
of his eye to the clock on his desk that marked 11:25 .
Again she tried to hold him, although, with equal
involuntariness, her attempt was made in mild terms
of resentment.
" You are a strange and wonderful Red Cloud,"
she said slowly. " Sometimes almost am I con-
vinced that you are utterly Red Cloud, planting your
acorns and singing your savage joy of the planting.
And, sometimes, almost you are to me the ultra-
modern man, the last word of the two-legged, male
human that finds Trojan adventures in sieges of sta-
tistics, and, armed with test tubes and hypodermics,
engages in gladiatorial contests with weird micro-
organisms. Almost, at times, it seems you should
wear glasses and be bald-headed; almost, it
seems. .."
" That I have no right of vigor to possess an arm
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 87

ful of girl," he completed for her, drawing her still

closer. " That I am a silly scientific brute who
doesn't merit his ' vain little breath of sweet rose-
colored dust.' Well, listen, I have a plan. In a
few days...."
But his plan died in birth, for, at their backs, came
a discreet cough of warning, and, both heads turn-
ing as one, they saw Bonbright, the assistant secre-
tary, with a sheaf of notes on yellow sheets in his
hand.
" Four telegrams," he murmured apologetically.
" Mr. Blake is confident that two of them are very
important. One of them concerns that Chile ship-
ment of bulls ...."
And Paula, slowly drawing away from her hus-
band and rising to her feet, could feel him slipping
from her toward his tables of statistics, bills of
lading, and secretaries, foremen, and managers .
" Oh, Paula," Dick called, as she was fading
through the doorway; " I've christened the last boy
— he's to be known as ' Oh Ho. ' How do you like
it? "
Her reply began with a hint of forlornness that
vanished with her smile, as she warned :
" You will play ducks and drakes with the house-
boys' names."
" I never do it with pedigreed stock," he assured
her with a solemnity belied by the challenging twin-
kle in his eyes.
" I didn't mean that," was her retort. " I meant
that you were exhausting the possibilities of the
language. Before long you'll have to be calling
them Oh Bel, Oh Hell, and Oh Go to Hell. Your
88 THE LITTLE LADY

' Oh ' was a mistake. You should have started with

' Red.' Then you could have had Red Bull, Red
Horse, Red Dog, Red Frog, Red Fern — and, and
all the rest of the reds."
She mingled her laughter with his, as she vanished,
and, the next moment, the telegram before him, he
was immersed in the details of the shipment, at two
hundred and fifty dollars each, F. O. B. , of three
hundred registered yearling bulls to the beef ranges
of Chile. Even so, vaguely, with vague pleasure,
he heard Paula sing her way back across the patio
to her long wing of house; though he was unaware
that her voice was a trifle, just the merest trifle, sub-
dued.
 CHAPTER VIII

IVE minutes after Paula had left him, punctual

F to the second, the four telegrams disposed of,
Dick was getting into a ranch motor car, along
with Thayer, the Idaho buyer, and Naismith, the
special correspondent for the Breeders' Gazette.
Wardman, the sheep manager, joined them at the
corrals where several thousand young Shropshire
rams had been assembled for inspection.
There was little need for conversation. Thayer
was distinctly disappointed in this, for he felt that
the purchase of ten carloads of such expensive crea-
tures was momentous enough to merit much conver-
sation.
" They speak for themselves," Dick had assured
him, and turned aside to give data to Naismith for
his impending article on Shropshires in California
and the Northwest.
" I wouldn't advise you to bother to select them,"
Dick told Thayer ten minutes later. " The average
is all top. You could spend a week picking your
ten carloads and have no higher grade than if you
had taken the first to hand."
This cool assumption that the sale was already
consummated so perturbed Thayer, that, along with
the sure knowledge that he had never seen so high
a quality of rams, he was nettled into changing his
order to twenty carloads.
As he told Naismith, after they had regained the
89
90 THE LITTLE LADY

Big House and as they chalked their cues to finish

the interrupted game :
" It's my first visit to Forrest's. He's a wizard.
I've been buying in the East and importing. But
those Shropshires won my judgment. You noticed
I doubled my order. Those Idaho buyers will be
wild for them. I only had buying orders straight
for six carloads, and contingent on my judgment for
two carloads more ; but if every buyer doesn't double
his order, straight and contingent, when he sees them
rams, and if there isn't a stampede for what's left,
I don't know sheep. They're the goods. If they
don't jump up the sheep game of Idaho • ..well,
then Forrest's no breeder and I'm no buyer, that's
all ."
As the warning gong for lunch rang out — a huge
bronze gong from Korea that was never struck until
it was first indubitably ascertained that Paula was
awake -

Dick joined the young people at the gold-

fish fountain in the big patio. Bert Wainwright,
variously advised and commanded by his sister, Rita,
and by Paula and her sisters, Lute and Ernestine,
was striving with a dip-net to catch a particularly
orgeous flower of a fish whose size and color and
multiplicity of fins and tails had led Paula to decide
to segregate him for the special breeding tank in the
fountain of her own secret patio.
Amid high excitement, and much squealing and
laughter, the deed was accomplished, the big fish
deposited in a can and carried away by the waiting
Italian gardener.
" And what have you to say for yourself? " Ernes-
tine challenged, as Dick joined them.
‫مس‬ OF THE BIG HOUSE 91

"Nothing," he answered sadly. " The ranch is

depleted. Three hundred beautiful young bulls de-
part to-morrow for South America, and Thayer —
you met him last night— is taking twenty carloads
of rams. All I can say is that my congratulations
are extended to Idaho and Chile."
" Plant more acorns," Paula laughed, her arms
about her sisters, the three of them smilingly exрес-
tant of an inevitable antic.
" Oh, Dick, sing your acorn song," Lute begged.
He shook his head solemnly.
" I've got a better one. It's purest orthodoxy.
It's got Red Cloud and his acorn song skinned to
death. Listen ! This is the song of the little East-
sider, on her first trip to the country under the au-
spices of her Sunday School. She's quite young.
Pay particular attention to her lisp."
And then Dick chanted, lisping :
" The goldfish thwimmeth in the bowl,
The robin thiths upon the tree ;
What maketh them thit so eathily ?
Who stuckth the fur upon their breasths ?
God! God ! He done it! "

" Cribbed," was Ernestine's judgment, as the

laughter died away.
" Sure," Dick agreed. " I got it from the
Rancher and Stockman , that got it from the Swine
Breeders' Journal, that got it from the Western Ad-
vocate, that got it from Public Opinion, that got it,
undoubtedly, from the little girl herself, or, rather
from her Sunday School teacher. For that matter
I am convinced it was first printed in Our Dumb
Animals ."
92 THE LITTLE LADY

The bronze gong rang out its second call, and

Paula, one arm around Dick, the other around Rita,
led the way into the house, while, bringing up the
rear, Bert Wainwright showed Lute Ernestine a new
tango step.
" One thing, Thayer," Dick said in an aside, after
releasing himself from the girls, as they jostled in
confusion where they met Thayer and Naismith at
the head of the stairway leading down to the dining
room. " Before you leave us, cast your eyes over
those Merinos. I really have to brag about them,
and American sheepmen will have to come to them.
Of course, started with imported stock, but I've made
a California strain that will make the French breeders
sit up. See Wardman and take your pick. Get
Naismith to look them over with you. Stick half
a dozen of them in your train-load, with my compli-
ments, and let your Idaho sheepmen get a line on
them."
They seated at a table, capable of indefinite ex-
tension, in a long, low dining room that was a replica
of the hacienda dining rooms of the Mexican land-
kings of old California. The floor was of large
brown tiles, the beamed ceiling and the walls were
whitewashed, and the huge, undecorated, cement fire-
place was an achievement in massiveness and sim-
plicity. Greenery and blooms nodded from without
the deep-embrasured windows, and the room ex-
pressed the sense of cleanness, chastity, and coolness.
On the walls, but not crowded, were a number of
canvases — most ambitious of all, in the setting of
honor, all in sad grays, a twilight Mexican scene by
Xavier Martinez, of a peon, with a crooked-stick
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 93

plow and two bullocks, turning a melancholy furrow

across the foreground of a sad, illimitable, Mexican
plain. There were brighter pictures, of early Mexi-
can-Californian life, a pastel of twilight eucalyptus
with a sunset-tipped mountain beyond, by Reimers,
a moonlight by Peters, and a Griffin stubble-field
across which gleamed and smoldered California
summer hills of tawny brown and purple-misted,
wooded canyons.
66

Say, " Thayer muttered in an undertone across to

Naismith, while Dick and the girls were in the thick
of exclamatory and giggling banter, " here's some
stuff for that article of yours, if you touch upon the
Big House. I've seen the servants' dining room.
Forty head sit down to it every meal, including gar-
deners, chauffeurs, and outside help. It's a boarding
house in itself. Some head, some system, take it
from me. That Chiney boy, Oh Joy, is a wooz.
He's housekeeper, or manager, of the whole she-
bang, or whatever you want to call his job — and,
say, it runs that smooth you can't hear it."
" Forrest's the real wooz," Naismith nodded.
" He's the brains that picks brains. He could run
an army, a campaign, a government, or even a three-
ring circus."
"Which last is some compliment," Thayer con-
curred heartily.

" Oh, Paula, " Dick said across to his wife. " I
just got word that Graham arrives to-morrow morn-
ing. Better tell Oh Joy to put him in the watch-
tower. It's man-size quarters, and it's possible he
may carry out his threat and work on his book."
94 THE LITTLE LADY

" Graham ? — Graham ? " Paula queried aloud

of her memory. " Do I know him ? "
" You met him once two years ago, in Santiago,
at the Cafe Venus. He had dinner with us."
" Oh, one of those naval officers ? "
Dick shook his head.
" The civilian. Don't you remember that big
blond fellow—you talked music with him for half
an hour while Captain Joyce talked our heads off
to prove that the United States should clean Mexico
up and out with the mailed fist."
" Oh, to be sure," Paula vaguely recollected.
" He'd met you somewhere before South
...

Africa, wasn't it ? Or the Philippines ? "

" That's the chap. South Africa, it was. Evan
Graham. Next time we met was on the Times dis-
patch boat on the Yellow Sea. And we crossed trails
a dozen times after that, without meeting, until that
night in the Cafe Venus.
" Heavens — he left Bora-Bora, going east, two
days before I dropped anchor bound west on my way
to Samoa. I came out of Apia, with letters for him
from the American consul, the day before he came in.
We missed each other by three days at Levuka I -

was sailing the Wild Duck then. He pulled out of

Suva as guest on a British cruiser. Sir Everard Im
Thurm, British High Commissioner of the South
Seas, gave me more letters for Graham. I missed
him at Port Resolution and at Vila in the New
Hebrides . The cruiser was junketing, you see. I
beat her in and out of the Santa Cruz Group. It
was the same thing in the Solomons. The cruiser,
after shelling the cannibal villages at Langa-Langa,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 95

steamed out in the morning. I sailed in that after-

noon. I never did deliver those letters in person,
and the next time I laid eyes on him was at the Cafe
Venus two years ago."
" But who about him, and what about him ? "
Paula queried. " And what's the book? "
" Well, first of all, beginning at the end, he's broke
—that is, for him, he's broke. He's got an income
of several thousand a year left, but all that his fa-
ther left him is gone. No; he didn't blow it. He
got in deep, and the ' silent panic ' several years ago
just about cleaned him. But he doesn't whimper.
"He'sgood stuff, old American stock, a Yale man.
The book -

he expects to make a bit on it — covers

last year's trip across South America, west coast to
east coast. It was largely new ground. The Bra-
zilian government voluntarily voted him a honora-
rium of ten thousand dollars for the information he
brought out concerning unexplored portions of Brazil.
Oh, he's a man, all man. He delivers the goods.
Youknow the type— clean, big, strong, simple ; been
everywhere, seen everything, knows most of a lot of
things, straight, square, looks you in the eyes — well,
in short, a man's man."
Ernestine clapped her hands, flung a tantalizing,
man-challenging, man-conquering glance at Bert
Wainwright, and exclaimed: " And he comes to-
morrow ! "
Dick shook his head reprovingly.
" Oh, nothing in that direction, Ernestine. Just
as nice girls as you have tried to hook Evan Graham
before now. And, between ourselves, I couldn't
blame them. But he's had good wind and fast legs,
96 THE LITTLE LADY

and they've always failed to run him down or get

him into a corner, where, dazed and breathless, he's
mechanically muttered ' Yes ' to certain interrogato-
ries and come out of the trance to find himself, roped, 4

thrown, branded, and married. Forget him, Ernes-

tine. Stick by golden youth and let it drop its golden
apples. Pick them up, and golden youth with them,
making a noise like stupid failure all the time you
are snaring swift-legged youth. But Graham's out
of the running. He's old like me —just about the
same age — and, like me, he's run a lot of those
queer races . He knows how to make a get-away.
He's been cut by barbed wire, nose-twitched, neck-
burnt, cinched to a fare-you-well, and he remains sub-
dued but uncatchable. He doesn't care for young
things. In fact, you may charge him with being
wobbly, but I plead guilty, by proxy, that he is merely
old, hard bitten, and very wise."
 CHAPTER IX
66
HERE'S my Boy in Breeches ? " Dick
W
" shouted, stamping with jingling spurs
through the Big House in quest of its
Little Lady.
He came to the door that gave entrance to her
•long wing. It was a door without a knob, a huge
panel of wood in a wood-paneled wall. But Dick
shared the secret of the hidden spring with his wife,
pressed the spring, and the door swung wide.
" Where's my Boy in Breeches ? " he called and
stamped down the length of her quarters .
Aglance into the bathroom, with its sunken Roman
bath and descending marble steps, was fruitless , as
were the glances he sent into Paula's wardrobe room
and dressing room. He passed the short, broad
stairway that led to her empty window-seat divan in
what she called her Juliet Tower, and thrilled at
sight of an orderly disarray of filmy, pretty, lacy
woman's things that he knew she had spread out
for her own sensuous delight of contemplation. He
fetched up for a moment at a drawing easel, his re-
iterant cry checked on his lips, and threw a laugh
of recognition and appreciation at the sketch, just
outlined, of an awkward, big-boned, knobby, wean-
ling colt caught in the act of madly whinneying for
its mother.
97
98 THE LITTLE LADY

" Where's my Boy in Breeches ? " he shouted be-

fore him, out to the sleeping porch; and found only
a demure, brow-troubled Chinese woman of thirty,
who smiled self-effacing embarrassment into his eyes .
This was Paula's maid, Oh Dear, so named by
Dick, many years before, because of a certain so-
licitous contraction of her delicate brows that made
her appear as if ever on the verge of saying, " Oh
dear ! " In fact, Dick had taken her, as a child
almost, for Paula's service, from a fishing village on
the Yellow Sea where her widow-mother earned as
much as four dollars in a prosperous year at making
nets for the fishermen. Oh Dear's first service for
Paula had been aboard the three-topmast schooner,
All Away, at the same time that Oh Joy, cabin-boy,
had begun to demonstrate the efficiency that enabled
him, through the years, to rise to the majordomoship
of the Big House.
" Where is your mistress, Oh Dear ? " Dick asked.
Oh Dear shrank away in an agony of bashfulness .
Dick waited.
" She maybe with 'm young ladies — I don't
know," Oh Dear stammered; and Dick, in very
mercy, swung away on his heel.
" Where's my Boy in Breeches ? " he shouted, as
he stamped out under the porte cochere just as a
ranch limousine swung around the curve among the
lilacs.
" I'll be hanged if I know," a tall, blond man in
a light summer suit responded from the car; and the
next moment Dick Forrest and Evan Graham were
shaking hands.
Oh My and Oh Ho carried in the hand baggage,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 99

and Dick accompanied his guest to the watch tower

quarters.
" You'll have to get used to us, old man," Dick
was explaining. " We run the ranch like clockwork,
and the servants are wonders ; but we allow ourselves
all sorts of loosenesses. If you'd arrived two min-
utes later there'd have been no one to welcome you
but the Chinese boys. I was just going for a ride,
and Paula -

Mrs. Forrest — has disappeared. "

The two men were almost of a size, Graham top-
ping his host by perhaps an inch, but losing that inch
in the comparative breadth of shoulders and depth
of chest. Graham was, if anything, a clearer blond
than Forrest, although both were equally gray of
eye, equally clear in the whites of the eyes, and
equally and precisely similarly bronzed by sun and
weather-beat. Graham's features were in a slightly
larger mold; his eyes were a trifle longer, although
this was lost again by a heavier droop of lids. His
nose hinted that it was a shade straighter as well as
larger than Dick's, and his lips were a shade thicker,
a shade redder, a shade more bowed with fulsome-
ness.

Forrest's hair was light brown to chestnut, while

Graham's carried a whispering advertisement that
it would have been almost golden in its silk had
it not been burned almost to sandiness by the sun.
The cheeks of both were high-boned, although the
hollows under Forrest's cheek-bones were more pro-
nounced. Both noses were large-nostriled and sen-
sitive. And both mouths, while generously propor-
tioned, carried the impression of girlish sweetness
and chastity along with the muscles that could draw
 100 THE LITTLE LADY

the lips to the firmness and harshness that would not

give the lie to the square, uncleft chins beneath.
But the inch more in height and the inch less in
chest-girth gave Evan Graham a grace of body and 4

carriage that Dick Forrest did not possess. In this

particular of build, each served well as a foil to the
other. Graham was all light and delight, with a
hint— but the slightest of hints - of Prince Charm-
ing. Forrest's seemed a more efficient and formid-
able organism, more dangerous to other life, stouter-
gripped on its own life.
Forrest threw a glance at his wrist watch as he
1 talked, but in that glance, without pause or fumble
✓ of focus, with swift certainty of correlation, he read
1 the dial.
" Eleven-thirty," he said. " Come along at once,
Graham. We don't eat till twelve-thirty. I am
sending out a shipment of bulls, three hundred of
them, and I'm downright proud of them. You sim-
ply must see them. Never mind your riding togs.
Oh Ho — fetch a pair of my leggings. You, Oh Joy,
-

order Altadena saddled. - What saddle do you pre-

fer, Graham ? "
" Oh, anything, old man."
" English ? -
Australian ? -

McClellan ? -

Mexican ? " Dick insisted.

66

McClellan, if it's no trouble," Graham surren-

dered.

They sat their horses by the side of the road and

watched the last of the herd beginning its long jour-
ney to Chili disappear around the bend.
" I see what you're doing - it's great," Graham
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 101

said with sparkling eyes. " I've fooled some myself

with the critters, when I was a youngster, down in
the Argentine. If I'd had beef-blood like that
to build on, I mightn't have taken the cropper I
did"
.
"But that was before alfalfa and artesian wells , "
Dick smoothed for him. " The time wasn't ripe
for the Shorthorn. Only scrubs could survive the
droughts. They were strong in staying powers but
light on the scales. And refrigerator steamships
hadn't been invented. That's what revolutionized
the game down there."
" Besides, I was a mere youngster," Graham
added. " Though that meant nothing much. There
was a young German tackled it at the same time I
did, with a tenth of my capital. He hung it out, lean
years, dry years, and all. He's rated in seven figures
now."
They turned their horses back for the Big House.
Dick flirted his wrist to see his watch.
" Lots of time," he assured his guest. " I'm glad
you saw those yearlings. There was one reason
why that young German stuck it out. He had to.
You had your father's money to fall back on, and, I
imagine not only that your feet itched, but that your
chief weakness lay in that you could afford to solace
the itching."

" Over there are the fish ponds," Dick said, indi-
cating with a nod of his head to the right an invisible
area beyond the lilacs. " You'll have plenty of op-
portunity to catch a mess of trout, or bass, or even
catfish. You see, I'm a miser. I love to make
102 THE LITTLE LADY

things work. There may be a justification for the

eight-hour labor day, but I make the work-day of
water just twenty-four hours' long. The ponds are
in series, according to the nature of the fish. But
the water starts working up in the mountains. It ir-
rigates a score of mountain meadows before it makes
the plunge and is clarified to crystal clearness in the
next few rugged miles ; and at the plunge from the
highlands it generates half the power and all the
lighting used on the ranch. Then it sub-irrigates
lower levels, flows in here to the fish ponds, and runs
out and irrigates miles of alfalfa farther on. And,
believe me, if by that time it hadn't reached the flat
of the Sacramento, I'd be pumping out the drainage
for more irrigation."
" Man, man, " Graham laughed, " you could make
a poem on the wonder of water. I've met fire-wor-
shipers, but you're the first real water-worshiper
I've ever encountered. And you're no desert-
dweller, either. You live in a land of water —
pardon the bull—but, as I was saying ..."
Graham never completed his thought. From the
right, not far away, came the unmistakable ring of
shod hoofs on concrete, followed by a mighty splash
and an outburst of women's cries and laughter.
Quickly the cries turned to alarm, accompanied by the
sounds of a prodigious splashing and floundering as
of some huge, drowning beast. Dick bent his head
and leaped his horse through the lilacs, Graham, on
Altadena, followed at his heels. They emerged in
a blaze of sunshine, on an open space among the
trees, and Graham came upon as unexpected a picture
as he had ever chanced upon in his life.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 103

Tree-surrounded, the heart of the open space was

a tank, four-sided of concrete. The upper end of
the tank, full width, was a broad spill-way, sheened
with an inch of smooth-slipping water. The sides
were perpendicular. The lower end, roughly corru-
gated, sloped out gently to solid footing. Here, in
distress that was consternation, and in fear that was
panic, excitedly bobbed up and down a cowboy in
bearskin chaps, vacuously repeating the exclamation,
" Oh God! Oh God! "— the first division of it ris-
ing in inflection, the second division inflected fall-
ingly with despair. On the edge of the farther side,
facing him, in bathing suits, legs dangling toward
the water, sat three terrified nymphs.
And in the tank, the center of the picture, a great
horse, bright bay and wet and ruddy satin, vertical in
the water, struck upward and outward into the free
air with huge fore-hoofs steel-gleaming in the wet
and sun, while on its back, slipping and clinging, was
the white form of what Graham took at first to be
some glorious youth. Not until the stallion, sinking,
emerged again by means of the powerful beat of his
legs and hoofs, did Graham realize that it was a
woman who rode him — a woman as white as the
white silken slip of a bathing suit that molded to her
form like a marble-carven veiling of drapery. As
marble was her back, save that the fine delicate
muscles moved and crept under the silken suit as she
strove to keep her head above water. Her slim
round arms were twined in yards of half-drowned
stallion-mane, while her white round knees slipped
on the sleek, wet, satin pads of the great horse's
straining shoulder muscles. The white toes of her
104 THE LITTLE LADY

dug for a grip into the smooth sides of the animal,

vainly seeking a hold on the ribs beneath.
In a breath, or the half of a breath, Graham saw
the whole breathless situation, realized that the white
wonderful creature was a woman, and sensed the
smallness and daintiness of her despite her gladia-
torial struggles. She reminded him of some Dres-
den china figure set absurdly small and light and
strangely on the drowning back of a titanic beast.
So dwarfed was she by the bulk of the stallion that
she was a midget, or a tiny fairy from fairyland come
true.

As she pressed her cheek against the great arching

neck, her golden-brown hair, wet from being under,
flowing and tangled, seemed tangled in the black
mane of the stallion. But it was her face that smote
Graham most of all. It was a boy's face ; it was a
woman's face; it was serious and at the same time
amused, expressing the pleasure it found woven with
the peril. It was a white woman's face and -

modern; and yet, to Graham, it was all-pagan.

This was not a creature and a situation one hap-
pened upon in the twentieth century. It was straight
out of old Greece. It was a Maxfield Parrish
reminiscence from the Arabian Nights. Genii might
be expected to rise from those troubled depths, or
golden princes, astride winged dragons, to swoop
down out of the blue to the rescue.
The stallion, forcing itself higher out of water,
missed, by a shade, from turning over backward as
it sank. Glorious animal and glorious rider disap-
peared together beneath the surface, to rise together,
a second later, the stallion still pawing the air with
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 105

fore-hoofs the size of dinner plates, the rider still

clinging to the sleek, satin-coated muscles. Gra-
ham thought, with a gasp, what might have happened
had the stallion turned over. A chance blow from
any one of those four enormous floundering hoofs
could have put out and quenched forever the light and
sparkle of that superb, white-bodied, fire-animated
woman.

" Ride his neck! " Dick shouted. " Catch his
foretop and get on his neck till he balances out ! "
The woman obeyed, digging her toes into the
evasive muscle-pads for the quick effort, and leaping
upward, one hand twined in the wet mane, the other
hand free and up-stretched, darting between the ears
and clutching the foretop. The next moment, as
the stallion balanced out horizontally in obedience
to her shiftage of weight, she had slipped back to
the shoulders. Holding with one hand to the mane,
she waved a white arm in the air and flashed a smile
of acknowledgment to Forrest ; and, as Graham
noted, she was cool enough to note him on his horse
beside Forrest. Also, Graham realized that the
turning of her head and the waving of her arm was
only partly in bravado, was more in æsthetic wisdom
of the picture she composed, and was, most of all,
sheer joy of daring and emprise of the blood and the
flesh and the life that was she.
" Not many women'd tackle that," Dick said
quietly, as Mountain Lad, easily retaining his hori-
zontal position once it had been attained, swam to
the lower end of the tank and floundered up the rough
slope to the anxious cowboy.
The latter swiftly adjusted the halter with a turn
106 THE LITTLE LADY

of chain between the jaws. But Paula, still astride,

leaned forward, imperiously took the lead-part from
the cowboy, whirled Mountain Lad around to face
Forrest, and saluted.
" Now you will have to go away," she called.
" This is our hen party, and the stag public is not
admitted."
Dick laughed, saluted acknowledgment, and led
the way back through the lilacs to the road.
" Who . who was it? " Graham queried.
...

" Paula -
Mrs. Forrest — the boy girl, the child
that never grew up, the grittiest puff of rose-dust that
was ever woman. "
66

My breath is quite taken away," Graham said.

" Do your people do such stunts frequently ? "
" First time she ever did that," Forrest replied.
" That was Mountain Lad. She rode him straight
down the spill-way — tobogganed with him, twenty-
two hundred and forty pounds of him."
" Risked his neck and legs as well as her own,"
was Graham's comment.
" Thirty-five thousand dollars' worth of neck and
legs," Dick smiled. " That's what a pool of breed-
ers offered me for him last year after he'd cleaned
up the Coast with his get as well as himself. And
as for Paula, she could break necks and legs at that
price every day in the year until I went broke only
-

she doesn't. She never has accidents."

" I wouldn't have given tuppence for her chance
if he'd turned over."
" But he didn't, " Dick answered placidly.
" That's Paula's luck. She's tough to kill. Why,
I've had her under shell-fire where she was actually T
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 107

disappointed because she didn't get hit, or killed, or

near-killed. Four batteries opened on us, shrapnel,
at mile-range, and we had to cover half a mile of
smooth hill-brow for shelter. I really felt I was jus-
tified in charging her with holding back. She did
admit a ' trifle.' We've been married ten or a dozen
years now, and, d'ye know, sometimes it seems to
me I don't know her at all, and that nobody knows
her, and that she doesn't know herself —just the
same way as you and I can look at ourselves in a
mirror and wonder who the devil we are anyway.
Paula and I have one magic formula : Damn the
expense when fun is selling. And it doesn't matter
whether the price is in dollars, hide, or life. It's
our way and our luck. It works. And, d'ye know,
we've never been gouged on the price yet."
 CHAPTER X

T was a stag lunch. As Forrest explained, the

I girls" Iwere 66

hen-partying."
doubt you'll see a soul of them till four
o'clock, when Ernestine, that's one of Paula's sisters ,
is going to wallop me at tennis— at least so she's
threatened and pledged."
And Graham sat through the lunch, where only
men sat, took his part in the conversation on breeds
and breeding, learned much, contributed a mite from
his own world-experiences, and was unable to shake
from his eyes the persistent image of his hostess, the
vision of the rounded and delicate white of her
against the dark wet background of the swimming
stallion. And all the afternoon, looking over prize
Merinos and Berkshire gilts, continually that vision
burned up under his eyelids. Even at four, in the
tennis court, himself playing against Ernestine, he
missed more than one stroke because the image of
the flying ball would suddenly be eclipsed by the
image of a white marble figure of a woman that
strove and clung on the back of a great horse.

Graham, although an outlander, knew his Cali-

fornia, and, while every girl of the swimming suits
was gowned for dinner, was not surprised to find
no man similarly accoutered. Nor had he made
the mistake of so being himself, despite the Big
House and the magnificent scale on whch it operated.
108
 THE LITTLE LADY 109

Between the first and second gongs, all the guests

drifted into the long dining room. Sharp after the
second gong, Dick Forrest arrived and precipitated
cocktails. And Graham impatiently waited the ap-
pearance of the woman who had worried his eyes
since noon. He was prepared for all manner of
disappointment. Too many gorgeous stripped
athletes had he seen slouched into conventional gar-
menting, to expect too much of the marvelous crea-
ture in the white silken swimming suit when it should
appear garbed as civilized women garb.
He caught his breath with an imperceptible gasp
when she entered. She paused, naturally, for just
the right flash of an instant in the arched doorway,
limned against the darkness behind her, the soft glow
of the indirect lighting full upon her. Graham's
lips gasped apart, and remained apart, his eyes rav-
ished with the beauty and surprise of her he had
deemed so small, so fairy-like. Here was no deli-
cate midget of a child-woman or boy-girl on a stal-
lion, but a grand lady, as only a small woman can
be grand on occasion.
Taller in truth was she, as well as in seeming, than
he had judged her, and as finely proportioned in her
gown as in her swimming suit. He noted her shining
gold-brown hair piled high; the healthy tinge of her
skin that was clean and clear and white; the singing
throat, full and round, incomparably set on a healthy
chest; and the gown, dull blue, a sort of medieval
thing with half-fitting, half-clinging body, with flow-
ing sleeves and trimmings of gold-jeweled bands.
She smiled an embracing salutation and greeting.
Graham recognized it as kin to the one he had seen
 110 THE LITTLE LADY

when she smiled from the back of the stallion .

When she started forward, he could not fail to see
the inimitable way she carried the cling and weight
of her draperies with her knees - round knees, he
knew, that he had seen press desperately into the
round muscle-pads of Mountain Lad. Graham ob-
served, also, that she neither wore nor needed cor-
seting. Nor could he fail, as she crossed the floor,
to see two women: one, the grand lady, the mistress
of the Big House ; one, the lovely equestrienne statue
beneath the dull-blue, golden-trimmed gown, that no
gowning could ever make his memory forget.
She was upon them, among them, and Graham's
hand held hers in the formal introduction as he was
made welcome to the Big House and all the hacienda
in a voice that he knew was a singing voice and that
could proceed only from a throat that pillared, such
as hers, from a chest deep as hers despite her small-
ness .

At table, across the corner from her, he could not

help a surreptitious studying of her. While he held
his own in the general fun and foolishness, it was his
hostess that mostly filled the circle of his eye and
the content of his mind.
It was as bizarre a company as Graham had ever
sat down to dinner with. The sheep-buyer and the
correspondent for the Breeders' Gazette were still
guests. Three machine-loads of men, women, and
girls, totaling fourteen, had arrived shortly before
the first gong and had remained to ride home in the
moonlight. Graham could not remember their
names ; but he made out that they came from some
valley town thirty miles away called Wickenberg,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE III

and that they were of the small-town banking, pro-

fessional, and wealthy-farmer class. They were full
of spirits, laughter, and the latest jokes and catches
sprung in the latest slang.
" I see right now," Graham told Paula, " if your
place continues to be the caravanserai which it has
been since my arrival, that I might as well give up
trying to remember names and people."
" I don't blame you," she laughed concurrence.
" But these are neighbors. They drop in any time.
Mrs. Watson, there, next to Dick, is of the old land--
aristocracy. Her grandfather, Wicken, came across
the Sierras in 1846. Wickenberg is named after
him. And that pretty dark-eyed girl is her daugh-
ter...."
And while Paula gave him a running sketch of the
chance guests, Graham heard scarce half she said,
so occupied was he in trying to sense his way to an
understanding of her. Naturalness was her key-
note, was his first judgment. In not many moments
he had decided that her key-note was joy. But he
was dissatisfied with both conclusions, and knew he
had not put his finger on her. And then it came to
him-pride. That was it! It was in her eye, in
the poise of her head, in the curling tendrils of her
hair, in her sensitive nostrils, in the mobile lips, in
the very pitch and angle of the rounded chin, in her
hands, small, muscular and veined, that he knew at
sight to be the hard-worked hands of one who had
spent long hours at the piano. Pride it was, in every
muscle, nerve, and quiver of her— conscious, sen-
tient, stinging pride.
She might be joyous and natural, boy and woman,
 112 THE LITTLE LADY

fun and frolic; but always the pride was there, vi-
brant, tense, intrinsic, the basic stuff of which she was
builded. She was a woman, frank, outspoken,
straight-looking, plastic, democratic ; but toy she was
not. At times, to him, she seemed to glint an im-
pression of steel — thin, jewel-like steel. She
seemed strength in its most delicate terms and fabrics.
He fondled the impression of her as of silverspun
wire, of fine leather, of twisted hair-sennit from the
heads of maidens such as the Marquesans make, of
carven pearl-shell for the lure of the bonita, and of
barbed ivory at the heads of sea-spears such as the
Eskimos throw.
" All right, Aaron," they heard Dick Forrest's
voice rising, in a lull, from the other end of the
table. " Here's something from Phillips Brooks
for you to chew on. Brooks said that no man ' has
come to true greatness who has not felt in some de-
gree that his life belongs to his race, and that what
God gives him, he gives him for mankind.' "
" So at last you believe in God? " the man, ad-
dressed Aaron, genially sneered back. He was a
slender, long-faced olive-brunette, with brilliant black
eyes and the blackest of long black beards.
" I'm hanged if I know," Dick answered. " Any-
way, I quoted only figuratively. Call it morality,
call it good, call it evolution."
" A man doesn't have to be intellectually correct
in order to be great," intruded a quiet, long-faced
Irishman, whose sleeves were threadbare and frayed.
" And by the same token many men who are most
correct in sizing up the universe have been least
great."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 113

" True for you, Terrence," Dick applauded.

" It's a matter of definition," languidly spoke up
an unmistakable Hindoo, crumbling his bread with
exquisitely slender and small-boned fingers. " What
shall we mean as great? "
" Shall we say beauty? " softly queried a tragic-
faced youth, sensitive and shrinking, crowned with
an abominably trimmed head of long hair.
Ernestine rose suddenly at her place, hands on
table, leaning forward with a fine simulation of in-
tensity.
" They're off ! " she cried. " They're off! Now
we'll have the universe settled all over again for the
thousandth time. Theodore "— to the youthful
poet-" it's a poor start. Get into the running.
Ride your father ion and your mother ion, and you'll
finish three lengths ahead."
A roar of laughter was her reward, and the poet
blushed and receded into his sensitive shell.
Ernestine turned on the black-bearded one :
" Now, Aaron. He's not in form. You start
it. You know how. Begin: ' As Bergson so well
has said, with the utmost refinement of philosophic
speech allied with the most comprehensive intellectual
i outlook that ...' "
More laughter roared down the table, drowning
Ernestine's conclusion as well as the laughing retort
of the black-bearded one.
"Our philosophers won't have a chance to-night,"
Paula stole in an aside to Graham .
“

Philosophers ? " he questioned back. " They

didn't come with the Wickenberg crowd. Who and
what are they ? I'm all at sea."
114 THE LITTLE LADY

" They -" Paula hesitated. " They live here.

They call themselves the jungle-birds. They have
a camp in the woods a couple of miles away, where
they never do anything except read and talk. I'll
wager, right now, you'll find fifty of Dick's latest,
uncatalogued books in their cabins. They have the
run of the library, as well, and you'll see them drift-
ing in and out, any time of the day or night, with
their arms full of books — also, the latest maga-
zines. Dick says they are responsible for his pos-
sessing the most exhaustive and up-to-date library
on philosophy on the Pacific Coast. In a way, they
sort of digest such things for him. It's great fun
for Dick, and, besides, it saves him time. He's a
dreadfully hard worker, you know."
" I understand that they ... that Dick takes care
of them ? " Graham asked, the while he pleasured in
looking straight into the blue eyes that looked so
straight into his.
As she answered, he was occupied with noting the
faintest hint of bronze — perhaps a trick of the light
—

in her long, brown lashes. Perforce, he lifted

his gaze to her eyebrows, brown, delicately stenciled,
and made sure that the hint of bronze was there.
Still lifting his gaze to her high-piled hair, he again
saw, but more pronounced, the bronze note glinting
from the brown-golden hair. Nor did he fail to
startle and thrill to a dazzlement of smile and teeth
and eye that frequently lived its life in her face.
Hers was no thin smile of restraint, he judged.
When she smiled she smiled all of herself, gener-
ously, joyously, throwing the largess of all her being
into the natural expression of what was herself and
L

OF THE BIG HOUSE 115

which domiciled somewhere within that pretty head

ofhers.
" Yes," she was saying. " They have never to
worry, as long as they live, over mere bread and
butter. Dick is most generous, and, rather immoral,
in his encouragement of idleness on the part of men
like them. It's a funny place, as you'll find out until
you come to understand us. They they are
appurtenances, and and hereditaments, and such
-

things. They will be with us always until we bury

them or they bury us. Once in a while one or an-
other of them drifts away — for a time. Like the
cat, you know. Then it costs Dick real money to
get them back. Terrence, there — Terrence Mc-
Fane- he's an epicurean anarchist, if you know
what that means . He wouldn't kill a flea . He has
a pet cat I gave him, a Persian of the bluest blue, and
he carefully picks her fleas, not injuring them, stores
them in a vial, and turns them loose in the forest on
his long walks when he tires of human companionship
and communes with nature.
" Well, only last year, he got a bee in his bonnet
—the alphabet. He started for Egypt — without
a cent, of course — to run the alphabet down in the
home of its origin and thereby to win the formula
that would explain the cosmos. He got as far as
Denver, traveling as tramps travel, when he mixed
up in some I. W. W. riot for free speech or some-
thing. Dick had to hire lawyers, pay fines, and do
just about everything to get him safe home again.
" And the one with a beard -

Aaron Hancock.
Like Terrence, he won't work. Aaron's a South-
erner. Says none of his people ever did work, and
116 THE LITTLE LADY

that there have always been peasants and fools who

just couldn't be restrained from working. That's
why he wears a beard. To shave, he holds, is un-
necessary work, and, therefore, immoral. I remem-
ber, at Melbourne, when he broke in upon Dick and
me, a sunburnt wild man from out the Australian
bush. It seems he'd been making original researches
in anthropology, or folk-lore-ology, or something like
that. Dick had known him years before in Paris,
and Dick assured him, if he ever drifted back to
America, of food and shelter. So here he is."
" And the poet ? " Graham asked, glad that she
must still talk for a while, enabling him to study the
quick dazzlement of smile that played upon her face.
" Oh, Theo — Theodore Malken, though we
call him Leo. He won't work, either. His peo-
ple are old Californian stock and dreadfully wealthy ;
but they disowned him and he disowned them when
he was fifteen. They say he is lunatic, and he says
they are merely maddening. He really writes some
remarkable verse when he does write; but he
prefers to dream and live in the jungle with Terrence
and Aaron. He was tutoring immigrant Jews in San
Francisco, when Terrence and Aaron rescued him,
or captured him, I don't know which. He's been
with us two years now, and he's actually filling out,
despite the facts that Dick is absurdly generous in
furnishing supplies and that they'd rather talk and
read and dream than cook. The only good meals
they get is when they descend upon us, like to-night."
" And the Hindoo, there—who's he ? "
" That's Dar Hyal. He's their guest. The three
of them invited him up, just as Aaron first invited
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 117

Terrence, and as Aaron and Terrence invited Leo .

Dick says, in time, three more are bound to appear,
and then he'll have his Seven Sages of the Madrono
Grove. Their jungle camp is in a madrono grove,
you know. It's a most beautiful spot, with living
springs, a canyon — but I was telling you about Dar
Hyal.
" He's a revolutionist, of sorts. He's dabbled in :
our universities, studied in France, Italy, Switzer-
land, is a political refugee from India, and he's
hitched his wagon to two stars : one, a new synthetic
system of philosophy; the other, rebellion against
the tyranny of British rule in India. He advocates
individual terrorism and direct mass action. That's
why his paper, Kadar, or Badar, or something like
that, was suppressed here in California, and why he
narrowly escaped being deported; and that's why he's
up here just now, devoting himself to formulating
his philosophy.
" He and Aaron quarrel tremendously—that is,
on philosophical matters. And now -" Paula
sighed and erased the sigh with her smile—" and
now, I'm done. Consider yourself acquainted.
And, oh, if you encounter our sages more intimately,
a word of warning, especially if the encounter be in
the stag room : Dar Hyal is a total abstainer; Theo-
dore Malken can get poetically drunk, and usually
does, on one cocktail ; Aaron Hancock is an expert
wine-bibber; and Terrence McFane, knowing little
of one drink from another, and caring less, can put
ninety-nine men out of a hundred under the table and
go right on lucidly expounding epicurean anarchy."
One thing Graham noted as the dinner proceeded.
118 THE LITTLE LADY

The sages called Dick Forrest by his first name ; but

they always addressed Paula as " Mrs. Forrest,"
although she called them by their first names. There
was nothing affected about it. Quite unconsciously
did they, who respected few things under the sun,
and among such few things not even work -

quite
unconsciously, and invariably, did they recognize the
certain definite aloofness in Dick Forrest's wife so
that her given name was alien to their lips. By such
tokens Evan Graham was not slow in learning that
Dick Forrest's wife had a way with her, compounded
of sheerest democracy and equally sheer royalty.
It was the same thing, after dinner, in the big
living room. She dared as she pleased, but nobody
assumed. Before the company settled down, Paula
seemed everywhere, bubbling over with more out-
rageous spirits than any of them. From this group
or that, from one corner or another, her laugh rang
out. And her laugh fascinated Graham. There
was a fibrous thrill in it, most sweet to the ear, that
differentiated it from any laugh he had ever heard.
It caused Graham to lose the thread of young Mr.
Wombold's contention that what California needed
was not a Japanese exclusion law but at least two hun-
dred thousand Japanese coolies to do the farm labor
of California and knock in the head the threatened
eight-hour day for agricultural laborers. Young
Mr. Wombold, Graham gleaned, was an hereditary
large land-owner in the vicinity of Wickenberg who
prided himself on not yielding to the trend of the
times by becoming an absentee landlord.
From the piano, where Eddie Mason was the
center of a group of girls, came much noise of rag-
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 119

time music and slangtime song. Terrence McFane

andAaron Hancock fell into a heated argument over
the music of futurism. And Graham was saved
from the Japanese situation with Mr. Wombold by
Dar Hyal, who proceeded to proclaim Asia for the
Asiatics and California for the Californians .
Paula, catching up her skirts for speed, fled down
the room in some romp, pursued by Dick, who cap-
tured her as she strove to dodge around the Wom-
bold group.
" Wicked woman," Dick reproved her in mock
wrath; and, the next moment, joined her in persuad-
ing Dar Hyal to dance.
And Dar Hyal succumbed, flinging Asia and the
Asiatics to the winds, along with his arms and legs,
as he weirdly parodied the tango in what he declared
to be the " blastic " culmination of modern dancing.
" And now, Red Cloud, sing Mr. Graham your
Acorn Song," Paula commanded Dick.
Forrest, his arm still about her, detaining her for
the threatened punishment not yet inflicted, shook
his head somberly.
" The Acorn Song ! " Ernestine called from the
piano; and the cry was taken up by Eddie Mason
and the girls.
" Oh, do, Dick," Paula pleaded. " Mr. Graham
is the only one who hasn't heard it."
Dick shook his head.
" Then sing him your Goldfish Song. "
" I'll sing him Mountain Lad's song," Dick bull-
ied, a whimsical sparkle in his eyes. He stamped his
feet, pranced, nickered a not bad imitation of Moun-
tain Lad, tossed an imaginary mane, and cried :
120 THE LITTLE LADY

" Hear me ! I am Eros ! I stamp upon the hills ! "

" The Acorn Song," Paula interrupted quickly and
quietly, with just the hint of steel in her voice.
Dick obediently ceased his chant of Mountain Lad,
but shook his head like a stubborn colt.
" I have a new song," he said solemnly. " It is about
you and me, Paula. I got it from the Nishinam. "
" The Nishinam are the extinct aborigines of this
part of California," Paula shot in a swift aside of
explanation to Graham.
Dick danced half a dozen steps, stiff-legged, as
Indians dance, slapped his thighs with his palms, and
began a new chant, still retaining his hold on his wife.
Me, I am Ai-kut, the first man of the Nishinam .
Ai-kut is the short for Adam, and my father and my
mother were the coyote and the moon. And this is
Yo-to-to-wi, my wife. She is the first woman of the
Nishinam. Her father and her mother were the
grasshopper and the ring-tailed cat. They were the
best father and mother left after my father and
mother. The coyote is very wise, the moon is very
old; but who ever heard much of anything of credit
to the grasshopper and the ring-tailed cat? The
Nishinam are always right. The mother of all
women had to be a cat, a little, wizened, sad-faced,
shrewd ring-tailed cat."
Whereupon the song of the first man and woman
was interrupted by protests from the women and ac-
clamations from the men.
" This is Yo-to-to-wi, which is the short for Eve,"
Dick chanted on, drawing Paula bruskly closer to
his side with a semblance of savage roughness .
" Yo-to-to-wi is not much to look at. But be not
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 121

hard upon her. The fault is with the grasshopper

and the ring-tailed cat. Me, I am Ai-kut, the first
man; but question not my taste. I was the first
man, and this, I saw, was the first woman. Where
there is but one choice, there is not much to choose.
Adam was so circumstanced. He chose Eve. Yo-
to-to-wi was the one woman in all the world for me,
so I chose Yo-to-to-wi."
And Evan Graham, listening, his eyes on that
possessive, encircling arm of all his hostess's fairness,
felt an awareness of hurt, and arose unsummoned the
thought, to be dismissed angrily, " Dick Forrest is
lucky- too lucky."
" Me, I am Ai-kut," Dick chanted on. " This
is my dew of woman. She is my honey-dew of
woman. I have lied to you. Her father and her
mother were neither hopper nor cat. They were the
Sierra dawn and the summer east wind of the moun-
tains. Together they conspired, and from the air
and earth they sweated all sweetness till in a mist
of their own love the leaves of the chaparral and
the manzanita were dewed with the honey-dew.
" Yo-to-to-wi is my honey-dew woman. Hear me !
I am Ai-kut. Yo-to-to-wi is my quail woman, my
deer-woman, my lush-woman of all soft rain and fat
soil. She was born of the thin starlight and the
brittle dawn-light before the sun ..

" And," Forrest concluded, relapsing into his nat-

ural voice and enunciation, having reached the limit
of extemporization, " and if you think old, sweet,
blue-eyed Solomon has anything on me in singing the
Song of Songs, just put your names down for the sub-
scription edition of my Song of Songs."
 CHAPTER XI

T was Mrs. Mason who first asked that Paula

I Hancock who evicted the rag-time group from
play; but it was Terrence McFane and Aaron

the piano and sent Theodore Malken, a blushing am-

bassador, to escort Paula.
" 'Tis for the confounding of this pagan that I'm
askin' you to play ' Reflections on the Water, "
Graham heard Terrence say to her.
" And ' The Girl with Flaxen Hair,' after, please,"
begged Hancock, the indicted pagan . " It will aptly
prove my disputation. This wild Celt has a bog-
theory of music that predates the cave-man - and
he has the unadulterated stupidity to call himself
ultra-modern ."
" Oh, Debussy! " Paula laughed. " Still wran-
gling over him, eh? I'll try and get around to him.
But I don't know with what I'll begin."
Dar Hyal joined the three sages in seating Paula
at the concert grand which, Graham decided, was
none too great for the great room. But no sooner
was she seated than the three sages slipped away to
what were evidently their chosen listening places.
The young poet stretched himself prone on a deep
bearskin forty feet from the piano, his hands buried
in his hair. Terrence and Aaron lolled into a cush-
ioned embrasure of a window seat, sufficiently near
122
 THE LITTLE LADY 123

to each other to nudge the points of their respective

contentions as Paula might expound them. The
girls were huddled in colored groups on wide couches
or garlanded in twos and threes on and in the big
koa-wood chairs .
Evan Graham half-started forward to take the
honor of turning Paula's music, but saw in time that
Dar Hyal had already elected to himself that office.
Graham glimpsed the scene with quiet curious
glances. The grand piano, under a low arch at
the far-end of the room, was cunningly raised
and placed as on and in a sounding board. All
jollity and banter had ceased. Evidently, he
thought, the Little Lady had a way with her and
was accepted as a player of parts. And from this
hewas perversely prepared for disappointment.
Ernestine leaned across from a chair to whis-
per to him :
" She can do anything she wants to do. And she
doesn't work much. She studied under
Leschetizky and Madame Carreno, you know, and
she abides by their methods. She doesn't play like
awoman, either. Listen to that ! "
Graham knew that he expected disappointment
from her confident hands, even as she rippled them
over the keys in little chords and runs with which
he could not quarrel but which he had heard too
often before from technically brilliant but musically
mediocre performers. But whatever he might have
fancied she would play, he was all unprepared for
Rachmaninoff's sheerly masculine Prelude, which he
had heard only men play when decently played.
She took hold of the piano, with the first two ring
124 THE LITTLE LADY

ing bars, masterfully, like a man; she seemed to lift

it, and its sounding wires, with her two hands, with
the strength and certitude of maleness. And then,
as only he had heard men do it, she sank, or leaped —
he could scarcely say which—to the sureness and
pureness and ineffable softness of the Andante fol-
lowing.
She played on, with the calm and power of any-
thing but the little, almost girlish woman he glimpsed
through half-closed lids across the ebony board of
the enormous piano, which she commanded, as she
commanded herself, as she commanded the composer.
Her touch was definite, authoritative, was his judg-
ment, as the Prelude faded away in dying chords
hauntingly reminiscent of its full vigor that seemed
still to linger in the air.
While Aaron and Terrence debated in excited
whispers in the window seat, and while Dar Hyal
sought other music at Paula's direction, she glanced
at Dick, who turned off bowl after bowl of mellow
light till Paula sat in an oasis of soft glow that
brought out the dull gold lights in her dress and hair.
Graham watched the lofty room grow loftier in
the increasing shadows. Eighty feet in length, rising
two stories and a half from masonry walls to tree-
trunked roof, flung across with a flying gallery from
the rail of which hung skins of wild animals, hand-
woven blankets of Oaxaca and Ecuador, and tapas,
woman-pounded and vegetable-dyed, from the islands
of the South Pacific, Graham knew it for what it was
— a feast-hall of some medieval castle ; and almost
he felt a poignant sense of lack of the long spread
table, with pewter below the salt and silver above the
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 125

salt, and with huge hound-dogs scuffling beneath for

bones.
Later, when Paula had played sufficient Debussy
> to equip Terrence and Aaron for fresh war, Graham
talked with her about music for a few vivid moments .
So well did she prove herself aware of the philoso-
phy of music, that, ere he knew it, he was seduced
into voicing his own pet theory.
" And so," he concluded, " the true psychic factor
of music took nearly three thousand years to impress
itself on the Western mind. Debussy more nearly
attains the idea-engendering and suggestive serenity
— say of the time of Pythagoras — than any of his
fore-runners "
Here, Paula put a pause in his summary by beckon-
ing over Terrence and Aaron from their battlefield
in the windowseat.
" Yes, and what of it ? " Terrence was demand-
ing, as they came up side by side. " I defy you,
Aaron, I defy you, to get one thought out of Berg-
son on music that is more lucid than any thought he
ever uttered in his ' Philosophy of Laughter,' which
is not lucid at all."
" Oh!— listen ! "
Paula cried, with sparkling
eyes. " We have a new prophet. Hear Mr. Gra-
ham. He's worthy of your steel, of both your steel.
He agrees with you that music is the refuge from
blood and iron and the pounding of the table. That
weak souls, and sensitive souls, and high-pitched souls
flee from the crassness and the rawness of the world
to the drug-dreams of the over-world of rhythm and
vibration-"
" Atavistic ! " Aaron Hancock snorted. " The
 126 THE LITTLE LADY

cave-men, the monkey-folk, and the ancestral bog-

men of Terrence did that sort of thing —"
" But wait, " Paula urged. " It's his conclusions
and methods and processes. Also, there he dis-
agrees with you, Aaron, fundamentally. He quoted
Pater's ' that all art aspires toward music '—"
" Pure prehuman and micro-organic chemistry,"
Aaron broke in. " The reactions of cell-elements to
the doggerel punch of the wave-lengths of sunlight,
the foundation of all folk-songs and rag-times.
Terrence completes his circle right there and stultifies
all his windiness. Now listen to me, and I will pre-
sent —"
" But wait," Paula pleaded. " Mr. Graham ar-
gues that English puritanism barred music, real
music, for centuries...."
" True, " said Terrence.
" And that England had to win to its sensuous de-
light in rhythm through Milton and Shelley —"
" Who was a metaphysician," Aaron broke in.
" A lyrical metaphysician, " Terrence defined in-
stantly. " That you must acknowledge, Aaron."
" And Swinburne ? " Aaron demanded, with a sig-
nificance that tokened former arguments.
" He says Offenbach was the fore-runner of Ar-
thur Sullivan," Paula cried challengingly. "And
that Auber was before Offenbach. And as for Wag-
ner, ask him, just ask him —"
And she slipped away, leaving Graham to his fate.
He watched her, watched the perfect knee-lift of her
draperies as she crossed to Mrs. Mason and set about
arranging bridge quartets, while dimly he could hear
Terrence beginning :
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 127

" It is agreed that music was the basis of inspira-

tion of all the arts of the Greeks .... "
Later, when the two sages were obliviously en-
grossed in a heated battle as to whether Berlioz or
Beethoven had exposited in their compositions the
deeper intellect, Graham managed his escape.
Clearly, his goal was to find his hostess again. But
she had joined two of the girls in the whispering,
giggling seclusiveness of one of the big chairs, and,
most of the company being deep in bridge, Graham
found himself drifted into a group composed of Dick
Forrest, Mr. Wombold, Dar Hyal, and the cor-
respondent of the Breeders' Gazette.
" I'm sorry you won't be able to run over with
}
me, " Dick was saying to the correspondent. " It
would mean only one more day. I'll take you to-
morrow."
" Sorry," was the reply. " But I must make Santa
Rosa. Burbank has promised me practically a whole
morning, and you know what that means. Yet I
know the Gazette would be glad for an account of
the experiment. Can't you outline it ?— briefly, just
briefly ? Here's Mr. Graham. It will interest
him, I am sure."
" More water-works ? " Graham queried.
" No ; an asinine attempt to make good farmers
out of hopelessly poor ones," Mr. Wombold an-
swered. " I contend that any farmer to-day who
has no land of his own, proves by his lack of it that
he is an inefficient farmer."
" On the contrary," spoke up Dar Hyal, weaving
his slender Asiatic fingers in the air to emphasize
his remarks. " Quite on the contrary. Times have
 128 THE LITTLE LADY

changed. Efficiency no longer implies the posses-

sion of capital. It is a splendid experiment, an
heroic experiment. And it will succeed."
" What is it, Dick ? " Graham urged. " Tell
us."
" Oh, nothing, just a white chip on the table," For-
rest answered lightly. " Most likely it will never
come to anything, although just the same I have my
"
hopes
" A white chip ! " Wombold broke in. " Five
thousand acres of prime valley land, all for a lot of
failures to batten on, to farm, if you please, on salary,
with food thrown in ! "
" The food that is grown on the land only," Dick
corrected. " Now I will have to put it straight.
I've set aside five thousand acres midway between
here and the Sacramento River. "
" Think of the alfalfa it grew, and that you need,"
Wombold again interrupted.
" My dredgers redeemed twice that acreage from
the marshes in the past year," Dick replied. " The
thing is, I believe the West and the world must come
to intensive farming. I want to do my share toward
blazing the way. I've divided the five thousand
acres into twenty-acre holdings. I believe each
twenty acres should support, comfortably, not only a
family, but pay at least six per cent."
" When it is all allotted it will mean two hundred
and fifty families," the Gazette man calculated;
" and, say five to the family, it will mean twelve
hundred and fifty souls."
" Not quite, " Dick corrected. " The last holding
is occupied, and we have only a little over eleven
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 129

hundred on the land." He smiled whimsically.

" But they promise, they promise. Several fat years
and they'll average six to the family."
" Who is we ? " Graham inquired.
" Oh, I have a committee of farm experts on it —
my own men, with the exception of Professor Lieb,
whom the Federal Government has loaned me. The
thing is : they must farm, with individual responsibil-
ity, according to the scientific methods embodied in
our instructions. The land is uniform. Every
holding is like a pea in the pod to every other hold-
ing. The results of each holding will speak in no
uncertain terms. The failure of any farmer,
through laziness or stupidity, measured by the aver-
age result of the entire two hundred and fifty farm-
ers, will not be tolerated. Out the failures must go,
convicted by the average of their fellows .
" It's a fair deal. No farmer risks anything.
With the food he may grow and he and his family
may consume, plus a cash salary of a thousand a year,
he is certain, good seasons and bad, stupid or intelli-
gent, of at least a hundred dollars a month. The
stupid and the inefficient will be bound to be elimi-
nated by the intelligent and the efficient. That's all.
It will demonstrate intensive farming with a ven-
geance. And there is more than the certain salary
guaranty. After the salary is paid, the adventure
must yield six per cent, to me. If more than this is
achieved, then the entire hundred per cent, of the ad-
ditional achievement goes to the farmer."
" Which means that each farmer with go in him
will work nights to make good— I see," said the
Gazette man. " And why not? Hundred-dollar
 130 THE LITTLE LADY

jobs aren't picked up for the asking. The average

farmer in the United States doesn't net fifty a month
on his own land, especially when his wages of super-
intendence and of direct personal labor are sub-
tracted. Of course able men will work their heads
off to hold to such a proposition, and they'll see to it
that every member of the family does the same."
" 'Tis the one objection I have to this place,"
Terrence McFane, who had just joined the group,
announced. " Ever one hears but the one thing —
work. 'Tis repulsive, the thought of the work, each
on his twenty acres, toilin' and moilin', daylight till
dark, and after dark — an' for what ? A bit of
meat, a bit of bread, and, maybe, a bit of jam on the
bread. An' to what end? Is meat an' bread an'
jam the end of it all, the meaning of life, the goal
of existence ? Surely the man will die, like a work
horse dies, after a life of toil. And what end has
been accomplished ? Bread an' meat an' jam ? Is
that it ? A full belly and shelter from the cold till
one's body drops apart in the dark moldiness of the
grave ? "
" But, Terrence, you, too, will die," Dick Forrest
retorted.
66

But, oh, my glorious life of loafing," came the

instant answer. " The hours with the stars and the
flowers, under the green trees with the whisperings
of breezes in the grass. My books, my thinkers
and their thoughts. Beauty, music, all the solaces of
all the arts. What ? When I fade into the dark
I shall have well lived and received my wage for liv-
ing. But these twenty-acre work-animals of two-
legged men of yours ! Daylight till dark, toil and

1
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 131

moil, sweat on the shirts on the backs of them that

dries only to crust, meat and bread in their bellies,
roofs that don't leak, a brood of youngsters to live
after them, to live the same beast-lives of toil, to fill
their bellies with the same meat and bread, to scratch
their backs with the same sweaty shirts, and to go
into the dark knowing only meat and bread, and,
mayhap, a bit of jam."
" But somebody must do the work that enables
you to loaf," Mr. Wombold spoke up indignantly.
" Tis true, 'tis sad 'tis true," Terrence replied
lugubriously. Then his face beamed. " And I
thank the good Lord for it, for the work-beasties
that drag and drive the plows up and down the fields,
for the bat-eyed miner-beasties that dig the coal and
gold, for all the stupid peasant-beasties that keep my
hands soft, and give power to fine fellows like Dick
there, who smiles on me and shares the loot with me,
and buys the latest books for me, and gives me a place
at his board that is plenished by the two-legged work-
beasties, and a place at his fire that is builded by the
same beasties, and a shack and a bed in the jungle
under the madrono trees where never work intrudes
its monstrous head."

Evan Graham was slow in getting ready for bed

that night. He was unwontedly stirred both by the
Big House and by the Little Lady who was its mis-
tress. As he sat on the edge of the bed, half-un-
dressed, and smoked out a pipe, he kept seeing her
in memory, as he had seen her in the flesh the past
twelve hours, in her varied moods and guises — the
woman who had talked music with him, and who had
 132 THE LITTLE LADY

expounded music to him to his delight; who had en-

ticed the sages into the discussion and abandoned him
to arrange the bridge tables for her guests; who had
nestled in the big chair as girlish as the two girls
with her; who had, with a hint of steel, quelled her
husband's obstreperousness when he had threatened
to sing Mountain Lad's song; who, unafraid, had
bestridden the half-drowning stallion in the swim-
ming tank; and who, a few hours later, had dreamed
into the dining room, distinctive in dress and person,
to meet her many guests.
The Big House, with all its worthy marvels and
bizarre novelties, competed with the figure of Paula
Forrest in filling the content of his imagination.
Once again, and yet again, many times, he saw the
slender fingers of Dar Hyal weaving argument in
the air, the black whiskers of Aaron Hancock enun-
ciating Bergsonian dogmas, the frayed coat-cuffs of
Terrence McFane articulating thanks to God for the
two-legged work-beasties that enabled him to loaf
at Dick Forrest's board and under Dick Forrest's
madrono trees.
Graham knocked out his pipe, took a final sweep-
ing survey of the strange room which was the last
word in comfort, pressed off the lights, and found
himself between cool sheets in the wakeful dark.
Again he heard Paula Forrest laugh; again he sensed
her in terms of silver and steel and strength ; again,
against the dark, he saw that inimitable knee-lift of
her gown. The bright vision of it was almost an irk
to him, so impossible was it for him to shake it from
his eyes. Ever it returned and burned before him,
a moving image of light and color that he knew to be
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 133

subjective but that continually asserted the illusion of

reality.
He saw stallion and rider sink beneath the water,
and rise again, a flurry of foam and floundering of
hoofs, and a woman's face that laughed while she
drowned her hair in the drowning mane of the beast.
And the first ringing bars of the Prelude sounded in
his ears as again he saw the same hands that had
guided the stallion lift the piano to all Rachmani-
noff's pure splendor of sound.
And when Graham finally fell asleep, it was in the
thick of marveling over the processes of evolution
that could produce from primeval mire and dust the
4
glowing, glorious flesh and spirit of woman.
 CHAPTER XII

HE next morning Graham learned further

T partly
the ways of the Big House. Oh My had
initiated him in particular things the
preceding day and had learned that, after the wak-
ing cup of coffee, he preferred to breakfast at table,
rather than in bed. Also, Oh My had warned him
that breakfast at table was an irregular affair, any-
where between seven and nine, and that the break-
fasters merely drifted in at their convenience. If he
wanted a horse, or if he wanted a swim or a motor
car, or any ranch medium or utility he desired, Oh
My informed him, all he had to do was to call for
it.
Arriving in the breakfast room at half past seven,
Graham found himself just in time to say good-by
to the Gazette man and the Idaho buyer, who, fin-
ishing, were just ready to catch the ranch machine
that connected at Eldorado with the morning train
for San Francisco. He sat alone, being perfectly in-
vited by a perfect Chinese servant to order as he
pleased, and found himself served with his first de-
sire — an ice-cold, sherried grapefruit, which, the
66
table-boy proudly informed him, was grown on the
ranch. " Declining variously suggested breakfast
foods, mushes, and porridges, Graham had just or-
dered his soft-boiled eggs and bacon, when Bert
Wainwright drifted in with a casualness that Graham
recognized as histrionic, when, five minutes later, in
134
 THE LITTLE LADY 135

boudoir cap and delectable negligee, Ernestine Des-

ten drifted in and expressed surprise at finding such
a multitude of early risers.
Later, as the three of them were rising from table,
they greeted Lute Desten and Rita Wainwright ar-
riving. Over the billiard table with Bert, Graham
learned that Dick Forrest never appeared for break-
fast, that he worked in bed from terribly wee small
hours, had coffee at six, and only on unusual occasions
appeared to his guests before the twelve-thirty
lunch. As for Paula Forrest, Bert explained, she
was a poor sleeper, a late riser, lived behind a door
without a knob in a spacious wing with a rare and
secret patio that even he had seen but once, and only
on infrequent occasion was she known to appear be-
fore twelve-thirty, and often not then.
" You see, she's healthy and strong and all that,"
he explained, " but she was born with insomnia. She
never could sleep. She couldn't sleep as a little baby
even. But it's never hurt her any, because she's got
a will, and won't let it get on her nerves. She's just
about as tense as they make them, yet, instead of
going wild when she can't sleep, she just wills to re-
lax, and she does relax. She calls them her ' white
nights,' when she gets them. Maybe she'll fall
asleep at daybreak, or at nine or ten in the morning ;
and then she'll sleep the rest of the clock around and
get down to dinner as chipper as you please."
" It's constitutional, I fancy, " Graham suggested.
Bert nodded.
" It would be a handicap to nine hundred and
ninety-nine women out of a thousand. But not to
her. She puts up with it, and if she can't sleep one
 136 THE LITTLE LADY

time— she should worry — she just sleeps some

other time and makes it up. "
More and other things Bert Wainwright told of
his hostess, and Graham was not slow in gathering
that the young man, despite the privileges of long
acquaintance, stood a good deal in awe of her.
" I never saw anybody whose goat she couldn't
get if she went after it," he confided. "Man or
woman or servant, age, sex, and previous condition
ofservitude -
it's all one when she gets on the high
and mighty. And I don't see how she does it.
Maybe it's just a kind of light that comes into her
eyes, or some kind of an expression on her lips, or,
I don't know what -
anyway, she puts it across and
nobody makes any mistake about it."
" She has a • a way with her," Graham vol-
unteered.
" That's it ! " Bert's face beamed. " It's a way
she has. She just puts it over. Kind of gives you
a chilly feeling, you don't know why. Maybe she's
learned to be so quiet about it because of the control
she's learned by passing sleepless nights without
squealing out or getting sour. The chances are she
didn't bat an eye all last night — excitement, you
know, the crowd, swimming Mountain Lad and such
things. Now ordinary things that'd keep most
women awake, like danger, or storm at sea, and such
things, Dick says don't faze her. She can sleep like
a baby, he says, when the town she's in is being bom-
barded or when the ship she's in is trying to claw
off a lee shore. She's a wonder, and no mistake.
You ought to play billiards with her — the English
game. She'll go some."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 137

A little later, Graham, along with Bert, encoun-

tered the girls in the morning room, where, despite
an hour of rag-time song and dancing and chatter,
he was scarcely for a moment unaware of a loneli-
ness, a lack, and a desire to see his hostess, in some
fresh and unguessed mood and way, come in upon
them through the open door.
Still later, mounted on Altadena and accompanied
by Bert on a thoroughbred mare called Mollie,
Graham made a two hours' exploration of the dairy
center of the ranch, and arrived back barely in time
to keep an engagement with Ernestine in the tennis
court.
He came to lunch with an eagerness for which his
keen appetite could not entirely account; and he knew
definite disappointment when his hostess did not ap-
pear.
" A white night," Dick Forrest surmised for his
guest's benefit, and went into details additional to
Bert's of her constitutional inaptitude for normal
sleep. " Do you know, we were married years be-
fore I ever saw her sleep. I knew she did sleep,
but I never saw her. I've seen her go three days
and nights without closing an eye and keep sweet
and cheerful all the time, and when she did sleep,
it was out of exhaustion. That was when the All
Away went ashore in the Carolines and the whole
population worked to get us off. It wasn't the dan-
ger, for there wasn't any. It was the noise. Also,
it was the excitement. She was too busy living.
And when it was almost all over, I actually saw her
asleep for the first time in my life."
A new guest had arrived that morning, a Donald
 138 THE LITTLE LADY

Ware, whom Graham met at lunch. He seemed

well acquainted with all, as if he had visited much in
the Big House; and Graham gathered that, despite
his youth, he was a violinist of note on the Pacific
Coast.
" He has conceived a grand passion for Paula,"
Ernestine told Graham as they passed out from the
dining room.
Graham raised his eyebrows.
" Oh, but she doesn't mind," Ernestine laughed.
" Every man that comes along does the same thing.
She's used to it. She has just a charming way of
disregarding all their symptoms, and enjoys them,
and gets the best out of them in consequence. It's
lots of fun to Dick. You'll be doing the same be-
fore you're here a week. If you don't, we'll all be
surprised mightily. And if you don't, most likely
you'll hurt Dick's feelings. He's come to expect it
as a matter of course. And when a fond, proud
huband gets a habit like that, it must hurt terribly
to see his wife not appreciated. "
" Oh, well, if I am expected to, I suppose I must,"
Graham sighed. " But just the same I hate to do
whatever everybody does just because everybody
does it. But if it's the custom — well, it's the cus-
tom, that's all. But it's mighty hard on one with
so many other nice girls around."
There was a quizzical light in his long gray eyes
that affected Ernestine so profoundly that she gazed
into his eyes over long, became conscious of what
she was doing, dropped her own eyes away, and
flushed.
" Little Leo —

the boy poet you remember last

 OF THE BIG HOUSE 139

night," she rattled on in a patent attempt to escape

from her confusion. " He's madly in love with
Paula, too. I've heard Aaron Hancock chaffing him
about some sonnet cycle, and it isn't difficult to guess
the inspiration. And Terrence — the Irishman, you
know- he's mildly in love with her. They can't
help it, you see ; and can you blame them ? "
" She surely deserves it all," Graham murmured,
although vaguely hurt in that the addle-pated, alpha-
bet-obsessed, epicurean anarchist of an Irishman who
gloried in being a loafer and a pensioner should even
mildly be in love with the Little Lady. " She is
most deserving of all men's admiration," he con-
tinued smoothly. " From the little I've seen of her
she's quite remarkable and most charming."
" She's my half-sister," Ernestine vouchsafed, " al-
though you wouldn't dream a drop of the same blood
ran in our veins. She's so different. She's different
-

from all the Destens, from any girl I ever knew

though she isn't exactly a girl. She's thirty- eight,
you know —"
66
Pussy, pussy," Graham whispered.
The pretty young blonde looked at him in surprise
and bewilderment, taken aback by the apparent ir-
relevance of his interruption.
" Cat," he censured in mock reproof.
" Oh! " she cried. " I never meant it that way.
" You will find we are very frank here. Everybody
knows Paula's age. She tells it herself. I'm
eighteen— so, there. And now, just for your mean-
ness, how old are you ? "
" As old as Dick," he replied promptly.
" And he's forty," she laughed triumphantly.
 140 THE LITTLE LADY

" Are you coming swimming ?—the water will be

dreadfully cold."
Graham shook his head. " I'm going riding with
Dick."
Her face fell with all the ingenuousness of eight-
een.

" Oh," she protested, " some of his eternal green

manures, or hillside terracing, or water-pocketing."
" But he said something about swimming at
five."
Her face brightened joyously.
" Then we'll meet at the tank. It must be the
same party. Paula said swimming at five."
As they parted under a long arcade, where his
way led to the tower room for a change into riding
clothes, she stopped suddenly and called :
" Oh, Mr. Graham."
He turned obediently.
" You really are not compelled to fall in love
with Paula, you know. It was just my way of put-
ting it."
" I shall be very, very careful," he said solemnly,
although there was a twinkle in his eye as he con-
cluded.
Nevertheless, as he went on to his room, he could
not but admit to himself that the Paula Forrest
charm, or the far fairy tentacles of it, had already
reached him and were wrapping around him. He
knew, right there, that he would prefer the engage-
ment to ride to have been with her than with his
old-time friend, Dick.
As he emerged from the house to the long hitch-
ing-rails under the ancient oaks, he looked eagerly
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 141

for his hostess. Only Dick was there, and the

stable-man, although the many saddled horses that
stamped in the shade promised possibilities. But
Dick and he rode away alone. Dick pointed out her
horse, an alert bay thoroughbred, stallion at that,
under a small Australian saddle with steel stirrups,
and double-reined and single-bitted.
" I don't know her plans," he said. " She hasn't
shown up yet, but at any rate she'll be swimming
later. We'll meet her then. "
Graham appreciated and enjoyed the ride, al-
though more than once he found himself glancing
at his wrist-watch to ascertain how far away five
o'clock might yet be. Lambing time was at hand,
and through home field after home field he rode with
his host, now one and now the other dismounting
to turn over onto its feet rotund and glorious Shrop-
shire and Ramboullet-Merino ewes so hopelessly the
product of man's selection as to be unable to get off,
of themselves, from their own broad backs, once
they were down with their four legs helplessly sky-
aspiring.
" I've really worked to make the American
Merino," Dick was saying ; " to give it the developed
leg, the strong back, the well-sprung rib, and the
stamina. The old-country breed lacked the stamina .
It was too much hand-reared and manicured."
" You're doing things, big things," Graham as-
sured him. " Think of shipping rams to Idaho !
That speaks for itself."
Dick Forrest's eyes were sparkling, as he replied :
" Better than Idaho. Incredible as it may sound,
and asking forgiveness for bragging, the great flocks
 142 THE LITTLE LADY

to-day of Michigan and Ohio can trace back to my

California-bred Ramboullet rams . Take Australia.
Twelve years ago I sold three rams for three hun-
dred each to a visiting squatter. After he took them
back and demonstrated them he sold them for as
many thousand each and ordered a shipload more
from me. Australia will never be the worse for my
having been. Down there they say that lucerne, ar-
tesian wells, refrigerator ships, and Forrest's rams
have tripled the wool and mutton production."
Quite by chance, on the way back, meeting Men-
denhall, the horse manager, they were deflected by
him to a wide pasture, broken by wooded canyons
and studded with oaks, to look over a herd of year-
ling Shires that was to be dispatched next morn-
ing to the upland pastures and feeding sheds of the
Miramar Hills. There were nearly two hundred
of them, rough-coated, beginning to shed, large-
boned and large for their age.
" We don't exactly crowd them," Dick Forrest ex-
plained, " but Mr. Mendenhall sees to it that they
never lack full nutrition from the time they are
foaled. Up there in the hills, where they are going,
they'll balance their grass with grain. This makes
them assemble every night at the feeding places and
enables the feeders to keep track of them with a
minimum of effort. I've shipped fifty stallions, two-
year-olds, every year for the past five years, to
Oregon alone. They're sort of standardized, you
know. The people up there know what they're get-
ting. They know my standard so well that they'll
buy unsight and unseen. "
" You must cull a lot, then," Graham ventured.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 143

" And you'll see the culls draying on the streets

of San Francisco," Dick answered.
" Yes, and on the streets of Denver," Mr. Men-
denhall amplified, " and of Los Angeles, and — why,
two years ago, in the horse-famine, we shipped
twenty carloads of four-year geldings to Chicago,
that averaged seventeen hundred each. The light-
est were sixteen, and there were matched pairs up
to nineteen hundred. Lord, Lord, that was a year
for horse-prices blue sky, and then some."
As Mr. Mendenhall rode away, a man, on a slen-
der-legged, head-tossing Palomina, rode up to them
and was introduced to Graham as Mr. Hennessy, the
ranch veterinary.
" I heard Mrs. Forrest was looking over the
colts," he explained to his employer, " and I rode
across to give her a glance at The Fawn here. She'll
be riding her in less than a week. What horse is
she on to-day ? "
" The Fop, " Dick replied, as if expecting the com-
ment that was prompt as the disapproving shake of
Mr. Hennessy's head.
" I can never become converted to women riding
stallions," muttered the veterinary. " The Fop is
dangerous. Worse — though I take my hat off to
his record -
he's malicious and vicious. She -

Mrs. Forrest ought to ride him with a muzzle but

he's a striker as well, and I don't see how she can
put cushions on his hoofs."
" Oh, well, " Dick placated, " she has a bit that is
a bit in his mouth, and she's not afraid to use it -"
" If he doesn't fall over on her some day," Mr.
Hennessy grumbled. " Anyway, I'll breathe easier
144 THE LITTLE LADY

when she takes to The Fawn here. Now she's a

lady's mount — all the spirit in the world, but noth-
ing vicious. She's a sweet mare, a sweet mare, and
she'll steady down from her friskiness. But she'll
always be a gay handful— no riding academy propo-
sition."
" Let's ride over," Dick suggested. " Mrs. For-
rest'll have a gay handful in The Fop if she's ridden
him into that bunch of younglings. It's her terri-
tory, you know," he elucidated to Graham. " All
the house horses and lighter stock is her affair. And
she gets grand results. I can't understand it, myself.
It's like a little girl straying into an experimental lab-
oratory of high explosives and mixing the stuff
around any old way and getting more powerful com-
binations than the graybeard chemists."
The three men took a cross-ranch road for half a
mile, turned up a wooded canyon where ran a spring-
trickle of stream, and emerged on a wide rolling ter-
race rich in pasture. Graham's first glimpse was of
a background of many curious yearling and two-year-
old colts, against which, in the middleground, he
saw his hostess, on the back of the bright bay thor-
oughbred, The Fop, who, on hind legs, was striking
his forefeet in the air and squealing shrilly. They
reined in their mounts and watched.
" He'll get her yet," the veterinary muttered mo-
rosely. " That Fop isn't safe."
But at that moment Paula Forrest, unaware of her
audience, with a sharp cry of command and a cavalier
thrust of sharp spurs into The Fop's silken sides,
checked him down to four-footedness on the ground
and a restless, champing quietness.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 145

" Taking chances ? " Dick mildly reproached her,

as the three rode up.
" Oh, I can manage him," she breathed between
tight teeth, as, with ears back and vicious-gleaming
eyes, The Fop bared his teeth in a bite that would
have been perilously near to Graham's leg had she
not reined the brute abruptly away across the neck
and driven both spurs solidly into his sides.
The Fop quivered, squealed, and for the moment
stood still.
" It's the old game, the white man's game," Dick
laughed. " She's not afraid of him, and he knows
it. She outgames him, out-savages him, teaches him
what savagery is in its intimate mood and tense."
Three times, while they looked on, ready to whirl
their own steeds away if he got out of hand, The
Fop attempted to burst into rampage, and three
times, solidly, with careful, delicate hand on the bit-
ter bit, Paula Forrest dealt him double spurs in the
ribs, till he stood, sweating, frothing, fretting, beaten,
and inhand.
" It's the way the white man has always done,"
Dick moralized, while Graham suffered a fluttery,
shivery sensation of admiration of the beast-conquer-
ing Little Lady. " He's out-savaged the savage the
world around," Dick went on. " He's out-endured
him, out-filthed him, out-scalped him, out-tortured
him, out-eaten him— yes, out-eaten him. It's a fair
wager that the white man, in extremis, has eaten
more of the genus homo, than the savage, in extre-
mis, has eaten."
" Good afternoon," Paula greeted her guest, the
ranch veterinary, and her husband. " I think I've
146 THE LITTLE LADY

got him now. Let's look over the colts. Just keep
an eye, Mr. Graham, on his mouth. He's a dread-
ful snapper. Ride free from him, and you'll save
your leg for old age."
Now that The Fop's demonstration was over, the
colts, startled into flight by some impish spirit
amongst them, galloped and frisked away over the
green turf, until, curious again, they circled back,
halted at gaze, and then, led by one particularly
saucy chestnut filly, drew up in half a circle before the
riders, with alert pricking ears.
Graham scarcely saw the colts at first. He was
seeing his protean hostess in a new role. Would her
proteanness never end? he wondered, as he glanced
over the magnificent, sweating, mastered creature she
bestrode. Mountain Lad, despite his hugeness, was
a mild-mannered pet beside this squealing, biting,
striking Fop who advertised all the spirited vicious-
ness of the most spirited vicious thoroughbred.
" Look at her," Paula whispered to Dick, in order
not to alarm the saucy chestnut filly. " Isn't she
wonderful ! That's what I've been working for."
Paula turned to Evan. " Always they have some
fault, some miss, at the best an approximation rather
than an achievement. But she's an achievement.
Look at her. She's as near right as I shall probably
ever get. Her sire is Big Chief, if you know our
racing register. He sold for sixty thousand when
he was a cripple. We borrowed the use of him.
She was his only get of the season. But look at her !
She's got his chest and lungs. I had my choices —
mares eligible for the register. Her dam wasn't
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 147

eligible, but I chose her. She was an obstinate old

maid, but she was the one mare for Big Chief. This
is her first foal and she was eighteen years old when
she bred. But I knew it was there. All I had to
do was to look at Big Chief and her, and itjust had
to be there."
" The dam was only half thoroughbred," Dick
explained.
" But with a lot of Morgan on the other side,"
Paula added instantly," and a streak along the back
of mustang. This shall be called Nymph, even if
she has no place in the books. She'll be my first un-
impeachable perfect saddle horse — I know it— the
kind I like — my dream come true at last."
" A hoss has four legs, one on each corner," Mr.
Hennessy uttered profoundly.
" And from five to seven gaits," Graham took up
lightly.
" And yet I don't care for those many-gaited Ken-
tuckians, " Paula said quickly, "— except for park
work. But for California, rough roads, mountain
trails, and all the rest, give me the fast walk, the fox
trot, the long trot that covers the ground, and the
not too-long, ground-covering gallop. Of course,
the close-coupled, easy canter; but I scarcely call that
a gait— it's no more than the long lope reduced to
the adjustment of wind or rough ground."
" She's a beauty," Dick admired, his eyes warm
incontemplation of the saucy chestnut filly, who was
daringly close and alertly sniffing of the subdued
Fop's tremulous and nostril-dilated muzzle.
" I prefer my own horses to be near thoroughbred
148 THE LITTLE LADY

rather than all thoroughbred," Paula proclaimed.

" The running horse has its place on the track, but
it's too specialized for mere human use."
" Nicely coupled," Mr. Hennessy said, indicating
the Nymph. " Short enough for good running and
long enough for the long trot. I'll admit I didn't
have any faith in the combination; but you've got a
grand animal out of it just the same."
" I didn't have horses when I was a young girl,"
Paula said to Graham; " and the fact that I can now
not only have them but breed them and mold them
to my heart's desire is always too good to be true.
Sometimes I can't believe it myself, and have to ride
out and look them over to make sure."
She turned her head and raised her eyes grate-
fully to Forrest; and Graham watched them look
into each other's eyes for a long half-minute. For-
rest's pleasure in his wife's pleasure, in her young
enthusiasm and joy of life, was clear to Gra-
ham's observation. " Lucky devil," was Graham's
thought, not because of his host's vast ranch and the
success and achievement of it, but because of the
possession of a wonder-woman who could look un-
abashed and appreciative into his eyes as the Little
Lady had looked.
Graham was meditating, with skepticism, Ernes-
tine's information that Paula Forrest was thirty-
eight, when she turned to the colts and pointed her
riding whip at a black yearling nibbling at the spring
green.
" Look at that level rump, Dick," she said, " and
those trotting feet and pasterns." And, to Graham :
" Rather different from Nymph's long wrists, aren't
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 149

they? But they're just what I was after." She

laughed a little, with just a shade of annoyance.
" The dam was a bright sorrel — almost like a fresh-
minted twenty-dollar piece — and I did so want a
pair out of her, of the same color, for my own trap.
Well, I can't say that I exactly got them, although
I bred her to a splendid, sorrel trotting horse. And
this is my reward, this black—and, wait till we get
to the brood mares and you'll see the other, a full
brother and mahogany brown. I'm so disap-
pointed."
She singled out a pair of dark bays, feeding to-
gether: " Those are two of Guy Dillon's get —
brother, you know, to Lou Dillon. They're out of
different mares, not quite the same bay, but aren't
they splendidly matched? And they both have Guy
Dillon's coat."
She moved her subdued steed on, skirting the flank
of the herd quietly in order not to alarm it; but a
number of colts took flight.
" Look at them ! " she cried. " Five, there, are
hackneys. Look at the lift of their fore-legs as
they run."
" I'll be terribly disappointed if you don't get a
prize-winning four-in-hand out of them," Dick
praised, and brought again the flash of grateful eyes
that hurt Graham as he noted it.
" Two are out of heavier mares - see that one in
the middle and the one on the far left — and there's
the other three to pick from for the leaders. Same
sire, five different dams, and a matched and balanced
four, out of five choices, all in the same season, is a
stroke of luck, isn't it ? "
150 THE LITTLE LADY

She turned quickly to Mr. Hennessy : " I can be-

gin to see the ones that will have to sell for polo
ponies — among the two-year-olds. You can pick
them."
" If Mr. Mendenhall doesn't sell that strawberry
roan for a clean fifteen hundred, it'll be because polo
has gone out of fashion," the veterinary approved,
with waxing enthusiasm. " I've had my eye on
them. That pale sorrel, there. You remember his
set-back. Give him an extra year and he'll — look
at his coupling ! —watch him turn ! — a cow-skin ?
—

he'll turn on a silver dollar ! Give him a year to

make up, and he'll stand a show for the international.
Listen to me. I've had my faith in him from the
beginning. Cut out that Burlingame crowd. When
he's ripe, ship him straight East."
Paula nodded and listened to Mr. Hennessy's
judgment, her eyes kindling with his in the warmth
of the sight of the abounding young life for which
she was responsible.
" It always hurts, though," she confessed to Gra-
ham, " selling such beauties to have them knocked
out on the field so quickly."
Her sheer absorption in the animals robbed her
speech of any hint of affectation or show so much
-

so, that Dick was impelled to praise her judgment

to Evan.
" I can dig through a whole library of horse prac-
tice, and muddle and mull over the Mendelian Law
until I'm dizzy, like the clod that I am; but she is
the genius. She doesn't have to study law. She just
knows it in some witch-like, intuitional way. All
she has to do is size up a bunch of mares with her
 OF THE BIG HOUSE
151

eyes, and feel them over a little with her hands, and
hunt around till she finds the right sires, and get
pretty nearly what she wants in the result except
color, eh, Paul ? " he teased.
She showed her laughing teeth in the laugh at her
expense, in which Mr. Hennessy joined, and Dick
contin ued : " Look at that filly there. We all knew
P
Paula was wrong. But look at it ! She bred a
rickety old thoroughbred, that we wanted to put out
of her old age, to a standard stallion; got a filly ;
bred it back with a thoroughbred ; bred its filly foal
with the same standard again ; knocked all our prog-
nostications into a cocked hat, and— well, look at it,
a world-beater polo pony. There is one thing we
have to take off our hats to her for: she doesn't let
any woman sentimentality interfere with her culling.
Oh, she's cold-blooded enough. She's as remorse-
less as any man when it comes to throwing out the
undesirables and selecting for what she wants . But
she hasn't mastered color yet. There's where her
genius falls down, eh, Paul ? You'll have to put up
with Buddy and Fuddy for a while longer for your
trap. By the way, how is Duddy ?? "
" He's come around," she answered, " thanks to
Mr. Hennessy."
66

Nothing serious," the veterinarian added. " He

was just off his feed a trifle. It was more a scare of
the stableman than anything else."
 CHAPTER XIII

ROM the colt pasture to the swimming tank

F nearly beside her as The Fop's wickedness per-
Graham talked with his hostess and rode as

mitted, while Dick and Hennessy, on ahead, were

deep in ranch business.
" Insomnia has been a handicap all my life," she
said, while she tickled The Fop with a spur in order
to check a threatened belligerence. " But I early
learned to keep the irritation of it off my nerves and
the weight of it off my mind. In fact, I early came
to make a function of it and actually to derive en-
joyment from it. It was the only way to master a
thing I knew would persist as long as I persisted.
Have you -

of course you have— learned to win

through an undertow ? "
" Yes, by never fighting it," Graham answered, his
eyes on the spray of color in her cheeks and the tiny
beads of sweat that arose from her continuous
struggle with the high-strung creature she rode.
Thirty-eight ! He wondered if Ernestine had lied.
Paula Forrest did not look twenty-eight. Her skin
was the skin of a girl, with all the delicate, fine-pored
and thin transparency of the skin of a girl.
" Exactly, " she went on. " By not fighting the
undertow. By yielding to its down-drag and out-
drag, and working with it to reach air again. Dick
taught me that trick. So with my insomnia. If it
152
 THE LITTLE LADY 153

is excitement from immediate events that holds me

back from the City of Sleep, I yield to it and come
quicker to unconsciousness from out the entangling
currents. I invite my soul to live over again, from
the same and different angles, the things that keep
me from unconsciousness .
" Take the swimming of Mountain Lad yesterday.
I lived it over last night as I had lived it in reality.
Then I lived it as a spectator— as the girls saw it,
as you saw it, as the cowboy saw it, and, most of all,
as my husband saw it. Then I made up a picture of
it, many pictures of it, from all angles, and painted
them, and framed them, and hung them, and then, a
spectator, looked at them as if for the first time.
And I made myself many kinds of spectators, from
crabbed old maids and lean pantaloons to girls in
boarding school and Greek boys of thousands of
years ago.
" After that I put it to music. I played it on the
piano, and guessed the playing of it on full orchestras
and blaring bands. I chanted it, I sang it— epic,
lyric, comic ; and, after a weary long while, of course
I slept in the midst of it, and knew not that I slept
until I awoke at twelve to-day. The last time I had
heard the clock strike was six. Six unbroken hours
is a capital prize for me in the sleep lottery."
As she finished, Mr. Hennessy rode away on a
cross path, and Dick Forrest dropped back to squire
his wife on the other side.
" Will you sport a bet, Evan? " he queried.
" I'd like to hear the terms of it first," was the
answer.

Cigars against cigars that you can't catch Paula

154 THE LITTLE LADY

in the tank inside ten minutes — no, inside five, for

I remember you're some swimmer."
" Oh, give him a chance, Dick," Paula cried gen-
erously. " Ten minutes will worry him."
" But you don't know him," Dicked argued.
" And you don't value my cigars. I tell you he is a
swimmer. He's drowned kanakas, and you know
what that means."
66

Perhaps I should reconsider. Maybe he'll slash

a killing crawl-stroke at me before I've really started.
Tell me his history and prizes."
" I'll just tell you one thing. They still talk of it
in the Marquesas. It was the big hurricane of 1892 .
He did forty miles in forty-five hours, and only he
and one other landed on the land. And they were
all kanakas. He was the only white man; yet he
out-endured and drowned the last kanaka of
them —"
" I thought you said there was one other ? " Paula
interrupted.
" She was a woman," Dick answered. " He
drowned the last kanaka ."
" And the woman was then a white woman ? "
Paula insisted.
Graham looked quickly at her, and although she
had asked the question of her husband, her head
turned to the turn of his head, so that he found her
eyes meeting his straightly and squarely in interroga-
tion. Graham held her gaze with equal straightness
as he answered : " She was a kanaka."
" A queen, if you please," Dick took up. "A
queen out of the ancient chief stock. She was Queen
of Huahoa. "
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 155

"Was it the chief stock that enabled her to out-

endure the native men? " Paula asked. " Or did
you help her ? "
" I rather think we helped each other toward the
end, " Graham replied. " We were both out of our
heads for short spells and long spells. Sometimes
it was one, sometimes the other, that was all in. We
made the land at sunset — that is, a wall of iron
coast, with the surf bursting sky-high. She took hold
of me and clawed me in the water to get some sense
in me. You see, I wanted to go in, which would
have meant finish.
" She got me to understand that she knew where
she was; that the current set westerly along shore
and in two hours would drift us abreast of a spot
where we could land. I swear I either slept or was
unconscious most of those two hours ; and I swear
she was in one state or the other when I chanced to
come to and noted the absence of the roar of the
surf. Then it was my turn to claw and maul her
back to consciousness. It was three hours more be-
fore we made the sand. We slept where we crawled
out of the water. Next morning's sun burnt us
awake, and we crept into the shade of some wild
bananas, found fresh water, and went to sleep again.
Next I awoke it was night. I took another drink,
and slept through till morning. She was still asleep
when the bunch of kanakas, hunting wild goats from
the next valley, found us."
" I'll wager, for a man who drowned a whole
kanaka crew, it was you who did the helping," Dick
commented.
" She must have been forever grateful," Paula
156 THE LITTLE LADY

challenged, her eyes directly on Graham's. " Don't

tell me she wasn't young, wasn't beautiful, wasn't a
golden brown young goddess. "
" Her mother was the Queen of Huahoa," Gra-
ham answered. " Her father was a Greek scholar
and an English gentleman. They were dead at the
time of the swim, and Nomare was queen herself.
She was young. She was beautiful as any woman
anywhere in the world may be beautiful. Thanks
to her father's skin, she as not golden brown. She
was tawny golden. But you've heard the story un-
doubtedly —"
He broke off with a look of question to Dick, who
shook his head.
Calls and cries and splashings of water from be-
yond a screen of trees warned them that they were
near the tank.
" You'll have to tell me the rest of the story some
time," Paula said.
" Dick knows it. I can't see why he hasn't told
you. "
She shrugged her shoulders.
" Perhaps because he's never had the time or the
provocation."
" God wot, it's had wide circulation," Graham
laughed. " For know that I was once morganatic
— or whatever you call it— king of the cannibal
isles, or of a paradise of a Polynesian isle at any rate.
—' By a purple wave on an opal beach in the hush of
the Mahim woods, " he hummed carelessly, in con-
clusion, and swung off from his horse.
"" The white moth to the closing vine, the bee to
the opening clover, " she hummed another line of
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 157

the song, while The Fop nearly got his teeth into her
leg and she straightened him out with the spur, and
waited for Dick to help her off and tie him.

" Cigars ! — I'm in on that!—you can't catch

her ! " Bert Wainwright called from the top of the
high dive forty feet above. " Wait a minute ! I'm
coming! "
And come he did, in a swan dive that was almost
professional and that brought handclapping approval
from the girls.
" A sweet dive, balanced beautifully," Graham
told him as he emerged from the tank.
Bert tried to appear unconscious of the praise,
failed, and, to pass it off, plunged into the wager.
" I don't know what kind of a swimmer you are,
Graham," he said, " but I just want in with Dick on
the cigars."
" Me, too; me, too ! " chorused Ernestine, and
Lute, and Rita.
" Boxes of candy, gloves, or any truck you care to
risk, " Ernestine added.
" But I don't know Mrs. Forrest's records, either, "
Graham protested, after having taken on the bets.
" However, if in five minutes —"
" Ten minutes," Paula said, " and to start from
opposite ends of the tank. Is that fair? Any touch
is a catch."
Graham looked his hostess over with secret ap-
proval. She was clad, not in the single white silk
slip she evidently wore only for girl parties, but in a
coquettish imitation of the prevailing fashion mode,
a suit of changeable light blue and green silk —al
158 THE LITTLE LADY

most the color of the pool; the skirt slightly above

the knees whose roundedness he recognized; with
long stockings to match, and tiny bathing shoes
bound on with crossed ribbons. On her head was a
jaunty swimming cap no jauntier than herself when
she urged the ten minutes in place of five.
Rita Wainwright held the watch, while Graham
walked down to the other end of the hundred-and-
fifty-foot tank.
" Paula, you'll be caught if you take any chances,"
Dick warned. " Evan Graham is a real fish man."
" I guess Paula'll show him a few, even without
the pipe," Bert bragged loyally. " And I'll bet she
can out-dive him. "
" There you lose," Dick answered. " I saw the
rock he dived from at Huahoa. That was after his
time, and after the death of Queen Nomare. He
was only a youngster — twenty-two; he had to be to
do it. It was off the peak of the Pau-wi Rock— one
hundred and twenty-eight feet by triangulation.
And he couldn't do it legitimately or technically with
a swan-dive, because he had to clear two lower ledges
while he was in the air. The upper ledge of the two,
by their own traditions, was the highest the best of
the kanakas had ever dared since their traditions be-
gan. Well, he did it. He became tradition. As
long as the kanakas of Huahoa survive he will remain
tradition - Get ready, Rita. Start on the full
minute."
" It's almost a shame to play tricks on so reputable
a swimmer," Paula confided to them, as she faced
her guest down the length of the tank and while both
waited the signal.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 159

" He may get you before you can turn the trick,"
Dick warned again. And then, to Bert, with just a
shade of anxiety: " Is it working all right? Be-
cause if it isn't, Paula will have a bad five seconds
getting out of it."
" All O.K. ," Bert assured. " I went in myself.
The pipe is working. There's plenty of air."
" Ready ! " Rita called. " Go ! "
Graham ran toward their end like a foot-racer,
while Paula darted up the high dive. By the time
she had gained the top platform, his hands and feet
were on the lower rungs. When he was half-way
up she threatened a dive, compelling him to cease
from climbing and to get out on the twenty-foot plat-
form ready to follow her to the water. Whereupon
she laughed down at him and did not dive.
" Time is passing — the precious seconds are tick-
ing off, " Ernestine chanted.
When he started to climb, Paula again chased him
to the half-way platform with a threat to dive. But
not many seconds did Graham waste. His next start
was determined, and Paula, poised for her dive,
could not send him scuttling back. He raced up-
ward to gain the thirty-foot platform before she
should dive, and she was too wise to linger. Out
into space she launched, head back, arms bent, hands
close to chest, legs straight and close together, her
body balanced horizontally on the air as it fell out-
ward and downward.
" Oh you Annette Kellerman ! " Bert Wainwright's
admiring cry floated up.
Graham ceased pursuit to watch the completion
of the dive, and saw his hostess, a few feet above
160 THE LITTLE LADY

the water, bend her head forward, straighten out her

arms and lock the hands to form the arch before
her head, and, so shifting the balance of her body,
change it from the horizontal to the perfect, water-
cleaving angle.
The moment she entered the water, he swung out
on the thirty-foot platform and waited. From this
height he could make out her body beneath the sur-
face swimming a full stroke straight for the far end
of the tank. Not till then did he dive. He was
confident that he could outspeed her, and his dive,
far and flat, entered him in the water twenty feet
beyond her entrance.
But at the instant he was in, Dick dipped two
flat rocks into the water and struck them together.
This was the signal for Paula to change her course.
Graham heard the concussion and wondered. He
broke surface in the full swing of the crawl and
went down the tank to the far end at a killing pace.
He pulled himself out and watched the surface of
the tank. A burst of handclapping from the girls
drew his eyes to the Little Lady drawing herself out
of the tank at the other end.
Again he ran down the side of the tank, and again
she climbed the scaffold. But this time his wind
and endurance enabled him to cut down her lead,
so that she was driven to the twenty-foot platform.
She took no time for posturing or swanning, but
tilted immediately off in a stiff dive, angling toward
the west side of the tank. Almost they were in
the air at the same time. In the water and under
it, he could feel against his face and arms the agi-
tation left by her progress; but she led into the deep
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 161

shadow thrown by the low afternoon sun, where the

water was so dark he could see nothing.
When he touched the side of the tank he came
up. She was not in sight. He drew himself out,
panting, and stood ready to dive in at the first sign
of her. But there were no signs .
" Seven minutes ! " Rita called. " And a half !
... Eight ! And a half! "
And no Paula Forrest broke surface. Gra-
ham refused to be alarmed because he could see no
alarm on the faces of the others.
" I lose," he announced at Rita's " Nine minutes ! "
" She's been under over two minutes, and you're
all too blessed calm about it to get me excited," he
said. " I've still a minute—maybe I don't lose,"
he added quickly, as he stepped off feet first into the
tank.
As he went down he turned over and explored the
cement wall of tank with his hands. Midway, pos-
sibly ten feet under the surface he estimated, his
hands encountered an opening in the wall. He
felt about, learned it was unscreened, and boldly en-
tered. Almost before he was in, he found he could
come up; but he came up slowly, breaking surface
in pitchy blackness and feeling about him without
splashing.
His fingers touched a cool smooth arm that shrank
convulsively at contact while the possessor of it cried
sharply with the startle of fright. He held on
tightly and began to laugh, and Paula laughed with
him. A line from " The First Chanty " flashed into
his consciousness —" Hearing her laugh in the gloom
greatly I loved her."
162 THE LITTLE LADY

" You did frighten me when you touched me,"

she said. " You came without a sound, and I was
a thousand miles away, dreaming ..."
" What ? " Graham asked .
" Well, honestly, I had just got an idea for a
gown — a dusty, musty, mulberry-wine velvet, with
long, close lines, and heavy, tarnished gold borders
and cords and things. And the only jewelery a
ring — one enormous pigeon-blood ruby that Dick
gave me years ago when we sailed the All Away."
" Is there anything you don't do? " he laughed.
She joined with him, and their mirth sounded
strangely hollow in the pent and echoing dark.
" Who told you ? " she next asked.
" No one. After you had been under two min-
utes I knew it had to be something like this, and I
came exploring."
" It was Dick's idea. He had it built into the
tank afterward. You will find him full of whimsies.
He delighted in scaring old ladies into fits by stepping
off into the tank with their sons or grandsons and
hiding away in here. But after one or two nearly
died of shock — old ladies, I mean — he put me up,
as to-day, to fooling hardier persons like yourself.
— Oh, he had another accident. There was a Miss
Coghlan, friend of Ernestine, a little seminary girl.
They artfully stood her right beside the pipe that
leads out, and Dick went off the high dive and swam
in here to the inside end of the pipe. After several
minutes, by the time she was in collapse over his
drowning, he spoke up the pipe to her in most hor-
rible, sepulchral tones. And right there Miss
Coghlan fainted dead away."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 163
" She must have been a weak sister," Graham com-
mented; while he struggled with a wanton desire
for a match so that he could strike it and see how
Paula Forrest looked paddling there beside him to
keep afloat.
" She had a fair measure of excuse," Paula an-
swered. " She was a young thing— eighteen ; and
she had a sort of school-girl infatuation for Dick.
They all get it. You see, he's such a boy when he's
playing that they can't realize that he's a hard- bitten ,
hard-working, deep-thinking, mature, elderly bene-
dict. The embarrassing thing was that the little
girl, when she was first revived and before she could
gather her wits, exposed all her secret heart . Dick's
face was a study while she babbled her —"
" Well?— going to stay there all night ? " Bert
Wainwright's voice came down the pipe, sounding
megaphonically close.
" Heavens ! " Graham sighed with relief; for he
had startled and clutched Paula's arm . " That's the
time I got my fright. The little maiden is avenged.
Also, at last, I know what a lead-pipe cinch is. "
"And it's time we started for the outer world,"
she suggested. " It's not the coziest gossiping place
in the world. Shall I go first ? "
" By all means -

an I'l be ri
d l be
ght hind; al-
though it's a pity the water isn't phos phorescent.
Then I could follow your incandescent heel like that
chap Byron wrote about — don't you remember ? "
He heard her appreciative gurgle in the dark, and
then her : " Well, I'm going now."
Unable to see the slightest glimmer, nevertheless,
from the few sounds she made he knew she had
164 THE LITTLE LADY

turned over and gone down head first, and he was

not beyond visioning with inner sight the graceful
way in which she had done it — an anything but
graceful feat as the average swimming woman ac-
complishes it.
" Somebody gave it away to you," was Bert's
prompt accusal, when Graham rose to the surface
of the tank and climbed out.
" And you were the scoundrel who rapped stone
under water," Graham challenged. " If I'd lost I'd
have protested the bet. It was a crooked game, a
conspiracy, and competent counsel, I am confident,
would declare it a felony. It's a case for the district
attorney."
" But you won," Ernestine cried.
" I certainly did, and, therefore, I shall not prose-
cute you, nor any one of your crooked gang — ifthe
bets are paid promptly. Let me see — you owe me
a box of cigars —"
" One cigar, sir ! "
" A box ! A box ! "
" Cross tag ! " Paula cried. " Let's play cross-
tag! -You're IT ! "
Suiting action to word, she tagged Graham on the
shoulder and plunged into the tank. Before he could
follow, Bert seized him, whirled him in a circle, was
himself tagged, and tagged Dick before he could es-
cape. And while Dick pursued his wife through the
tank and Bert and Graham sought a chance to cross,
the girls fled up the scaffold and stood in an enticing
row on the fifteen-foot diving platform.
 CHAPTER XIV

N indifferent swimmer, Donald Ware had

A afte
avoided the afternoon sport in the tank ; but
r dinner, somewhat to the irritation of
Graham, the violinist monopolized Paula at the pi-
ano . New guests, with the casual expectedness of
the Big House, had drifted in — a lawyer, by name
Adolph Weil, who had come to confer with Dick
over some big water-right suit ; Jeremy Braxton,
straight from Mexico , Dick's general superintendent
of the Harvest Group, which bonanza, according to
Jeremy Braxton , was as " unpetering " as ever ; Ed-
win O'Hay, a red- headed Irish musical and dramatic
critic; and Chauncey Bishop, editor and owner of
the San Francisco Dispatch, and a member of Dick's
class and frat, as Graham gleaned .
Dick had started a boisterous gambling game
which he called " Horrible Fives," wherein, although
excitement ran high and players plunged, the limit
was ten cents, and, on a lucky coup, the transient
banker might win or lose as high as ninety cents,
such coup requiring at least ten minutes to play out.
This game went on at a big table at the far end of
the room, accompanied by much owing and borrow-
ing of small sums and an incessant clamor for change.
With nine players, the game was crowded, and
Graham, rather than draw cards, casually and oc-
casionally backed Ernestine's cards, the while he
165
166 THE LITTLE LADY

glanced down the long room at the violinist and

Paula Forrest absorbed in Beethoven Symphonies
and Delibes' Ballets. Jeremy Braxton was demand-
ing raising the limit to twenty cents, and Dick, the
heaviest loser, as he averred, to the tune of four dol-
lars and sixty cents, was plaintively suggesting the
starting of a " kitty " in order that some one should
pay for the lights and the sweeping out of the place
in the morning, when Graham, with a profound sigh
at the loss of his last bet— a nickel which he had
had to pay double — announced to Ernestine that
he was going to take a turn around the room to
change his luck.
" I prophesied you would," she told him under her
breath .
" What ? " he asked.
She glanced significantly in Paula's direction.
" Just for that I simply must go down there now,"
he retorted.
" Can't dast decline a dare," she taunted.
" If it were a dare I wouldn't dare do it."
" In which case I dare you," she took up.
He shook his head: " I had already made up
my mind to go right down there to that one spot and
cut that fiddler out of the running. You can't dare
me out of it at this late stage. Besides, there's Mr.
O'Hay waiting for you to make your bet."
Ernestine rashly laid ten cents, and scarcely
knew whether she won or lost, so intent was she on
watching Graham go down the room, although she
did know that Bert Wainwright had not been un-
observant of her gaze and its direction. On the
other hand, neither she nor Bert, nor any other at the
 OF THE BIG HOUSE
167
table, knew that Dick's quick-glancing eyes , sparkling
with merriment while his lips chaffed absurdities that
made them all laugh, had missed no portion of the
side play.
Ernestine, but little taller than Paula, although
hinting of a plus roundness to come, was a sun-
healthy, clear blonde, her skin sprayed with the al-
most transparent flush of maidenhood at eighteen .
To the eye, it seemed almost that one could see
through the pink daintiness of fingers , hand, wrist,
and forearm, neck and cheek. And to this delicious
transparency of rose and pink, was added a warmth
of tone that did not escape Dick's eyes as he glimpsed
her watch Evan Graham move down the length of
room . Dick knew and classified her wild imagined
dream or guess, though the terms of it were beyond
his divination .
What she saw was what she imagined was the
princely walk of Graham, the high, light, blooded
carriage of his head, the delightful carelessness of
the gold-burnt, sun-sanded hair that made her fingers
ache to be into with caresses she for the first time
knew were possible of her fingers .
Nor did Paula, during an interval of discussion
with the violinist in which she did not desist from
stating her criticism of O'Hay's latest criticism of
Harold Bauer, fail to see and keep her eyes on
Graham's progress. She, too, noted with pleasure
his grace of movement, the high, light poise of head,
the careless hair, the clear bronze of the smooth
cheeks, the splendid forehead, the long gray eyes
with the hint of drooping lids and boyish sullenness
that fled before the smile with which he greeted her.
168 THE LITTLE LADY

She had observed that smile often since her first

meeting with him. It was an irresistible smile, a
smile that lighted the eyes with the radiance of good
fellowship and that crinkled the corners into tiny,
genial lines. It was provocative of smiles, for she
found herself smiling a silent greeting in return as
she continued stating to Ware her grievance against
O'Hay's too-complacent praise of Bauer.
But her engagement was tacitly with Donald Ware
at the piano, and with no more than passing speech,
she was off and away in a series of Hungarian dances
that made Graham marvel anew as he loafed and
smoked in a window-seat.
He marveled at the proteanness of her, at visions
of those nimble fingers guiding and checking The
Fop, swimming and paddling in submarine crypts,
and, falling in swan-like flight through forty feet of
air, locking just above the water to make the diver's
head-protecting arch of arm.
In decency, he lingered but few minutes, returned
to the gamblers, and put the entire table in a roar
with a well-acted Yiddisher's chagrin and passion at
losing entire nickels every few minutes to the for-
tunate and chesty mine superintendent from Mexico.
Later, when the game of Horrible Fives broke up,
Bert and Lute Desten spoiled the Adagio from
Beethoven's Sonata Pathetique by exaggeratedly rag-
ging to it in what Dick immediately named " The
Loving Slow-Drag," till Paula broke down in a
gale of laughter and ceased from playing.
New groupings occurred. A bridge table formed
with Weil, Rita, Bishop, and Dick. Donald Ware
was driven from his monopoly of Paula by the young
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 169

people under the leadership of Jeremy Braxton ;

while Graham and O'Hay paired off in a window-seat
and O'Hay talked shop.
After a time, in which all at the piano had sung
Hawaiian hulas, Paula sang alone to her own ac-
companiment. She sang several German love-songs
in succession, although it was merely for the group
about her and not for the room ; and Evan Graham,
almost to his delight, decided that at last he had
found a weakness in her. She might be a magnifi-
cent pianist, horsewoman, diver, and swimmer, but it
was patent, despite her singing throat, that she was
not a magnificent singer. This conclusion he was
quickly compelled to modify. A singer she was, a
consummate singer. Weakness was only compara-
tive after all. She lacked the magnificent voice. It
was a sweet voice, a rich voice, with the same warm-
fibered thrill of her laugh; but the volume so essen-
tial to the great voice was not there. Ear and voice
seemed effortlessly true, and in her singing were
feeling, artistry, training, intelligence. But volume
— it was scarcely a fair average, was his judgment.
But quality — there he halted. It was a woman's
voice. It was haunted with richness of sex. In it
resided all the temperament in the world —with all
the restraint of discipline, was the next step of his
analysis. He had to admire the way she refused
to exceed the limitations of her voice. In this she
achieved triumphs .
And, while he nodded absently to O'Hay's
lecturette on the state of the opera, Graham fell to
wondering if Paula Forrest, thus so completely the
mistress of her temperament, might not be equally
 170 THE LITTLE LADY

mistress of her temperament in the deeper, passional

ways. There was a challenge there based on -

curiosity, he conceded, but only partly so based ; and,

over and beyond, and, deeper and far beneath, a
challenge to a man made in the immemorial image
ofman.
It was a challenge that bade him pause, and even
look up and down the great room and to the tree-
trunked roof far above, and to the flying gallery
hung with the spoils of the world, and to Dick For-
rest, master of all this material achievement and
husband of the woman, playing bridge, just as he
worked, with all his heart, his laughter ringing loud
as he caught Rita in renig. For Graham had the
courage not to shun the ultimate connotations. Be-
hind the challenge in his speculations lurked the
woman. Paula Forrest was splendidly, deliciously
woman, all woman, unusually woman. From the
blow between the eyes of his first striking sight of her,
swimming the great stallion in the pool, she had
continued to witch-ride his man's imagination. He
was anything but unused to women; and his general
attitude was that of being tired of the mediocre
sameness of them. To chance upon the unusual
woman was like finding the great pearl in a lagoon
fished out by a generation of divers .
" Glad to see you're still alive," Paula laughed to
him, a little later.
She was prepared to depart with Lute for bed. A
second bridge quartet had been arranged —Ernes-
tine, Bert, Jeremy Braxton, and Graham; while
O'Hay and Bishop were already deep in a bout of
two-handed pinochle.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 171

" He's really a charming Irishman when he keeps

off his one string," Paula went on.
" Which, I think I am fair, is music," Graham
said.
"And on music he is insufferable," Lute observed.
" It's the only thing he doesn't know the least thing
about. He drives one frantic. "
" Never mind," Paula soothed, in gurgling tones.
" You will all be avenged. Dick just whispered to
me to get the philosophers up to-morrow night.
You know how they talk music. A musical critic
is their awful prey."
" Terrence said the other night that there was
no closed season on musical critics," Lute con-
tributed.
" Terrence and Aaron will drive him to drink,"
Paula laughed her joy of anticipation. " And Dar
Hyal, alone, with his blastic theory of art, can
specially apply it to music to the confutation of all
the first words and the last. He doesn't believe a
thing he says about blastism, any more than was he
serious when he danced the other evening. It's his
bit of fun. He's such a deep philosopher that he
has to get his fun somehow."
" And if O'Hay ever locks horns with Terrence,"
Lute prophesied, " I can see Terrence tucking arm
in arm with him, leading him down to the stag room,
and heating the argument with the absentest-minded
variety of drinks that ever O'Hay accomplished. "
" Which means a very sick O'Hay next day,"
Paula continued her gurgles of anticipation.
" I'll tell him to do it! " exclaimed Lute.
" You mustn't think we're all bad," Paula pro
 172 THE LITTLE LADY

tested to Graham. " It's just the spirit of the house.

Dick likes it. He's always playing jokes himself.
He relaxes that way. I'll wager, right now, it was
Dick's suggestion, to Lute, and for Lute to carry
out, for Terrence to get O'Hay into the stag room.
Now, ' fess up, Lute."
" Well, I will say," Lute answered with meticulous
circumspection, " that the idea was not entirely
original with me."
At this point, Ernestine joined them and appro-
priated Graham with :
" We're all waiting for you. We've cut, and you
and I are partners. Besides, Paula's making her
sleep noise. So say good night, and let her go."
Paula had left for bed at ten o'clock. Not till
one did the bridge break up. Dick, his arm about
Ernestine in brotherly fashion, said good night to
Graham where one of the divided ways led to the
watch tower, and continued on with his pretty sis-
ter-in-law toward her quarters.
" Just a tip, Ernestine," he said at parting, his
gray eyes frankly and genially on hers, but his voice
sufficiently serious to warn her.
" What have I been doing now? " she pouted
laughingly.
" Nothing •

as yet. But don't get started, or

you'll be laying up a sore heart for yourself. You're
only a kid yet— eighteen; and a darned nice, likable
kid at that. Enough to make 'most any man sit up
and take notice. But Evan Graham is not 'most
any man -"
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 173

" Oh, I can take care of myself," she blurted out

in a fling of quick resentment.
" But listen to me just the same. There comes a
time in the affairs of a girl when the love-bee gets a
buzzing with a very loud hum in her pretty noddle.
Then is the time she mustn't make a mistake and
start in loving the wrong man. You haven't fallen
in love with Evan Graham yet, and all you have to
do is just not to fall in love with him. He's not
for you, nor for any young thing. He's an oldster,
an ancient, and possibly has forgotten more about
love, romantic love, and young things, than you'll
ever learn in a dozen lives. If he ever marries
again —"
" Again ! " Ernestine broke in.
" Why, he's been a widower, my dear, for over
fifteen years."
" Then what of it? " she demanded defiantly.
" Just this," Dick continued quietly. " He's lived
the young-thing romance, and lived it wonderfully ;
and, from the fact that in fifteen years he has not
married again, means —"
" That he's never recovered from his loss ? "
Ernestine interpolated. " But that's no proof —"
“-

Means that he's got over his apprenticeship

to wild young romance," Dick held on steadily.
" All you have to do is look at him and realize that
he has not lacked opportunities, and that, on oc-
casion, some very fine women, real wise women,
mature women, have given him foot-races that tested
his wind and endurance. But so far they've not suc-
ceeded in catching him. And as for young things,
 174 THE LITTLE LADY

you know how filled the world is with them for a

man like him. Think it over, and just keep your
heart-thoughts away from him. If you don't let
your heart start to warm toward him, it will save
your heart from a grievous chill later on."
He took one of her hands in his, and drew her
against him, an arm soothingly about her shoulder.
For several minutes of silence Dick idly speculated
on what her thoughts might be .
" You know, we hard-bitten old fellows —" he be-
gan half-apologetically, half-humorously.
But she made a restless movement of distaste, and
cried out:
" Are the only ones worth while ! The young
men are all youngsters, and that's what's the matter
with them. They're full of life, and coltish spirits,
and dance, and song. But they're not serious.
They're not big. They're not — oh, they don't give
a girl that sense of all-wiseness, of proven strength,
of, of •
well, of manhood."
" I understand," Dick murmured. " But please
do not forget to glance at the other side of the shield.
You glowing young creatures of women must affect
the old fellows in precisely similar ways. They may
look on you as toys, playthings, delightful things to
whom to teach a few fine foolishnesses, but not as
comrades, not as equals, not as sharers -
full
sharers. Life is something to be learned. They
have learned it some of it. But young things
like you, Ernestine, have you learned any of it yet? "
" Tell me," she asked abruptly, almost tragically,
" about this wild young romance, about this young
thing when he was young, fifteen years ago."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 175

" Fifteen ? " Dick replied promptly. " Eighteen.

They were married three years before she died. In
fact— figure it out for yourself — they were
actually married, by a Church of England dominie,
and living in wedlock, about the same moment that
you were squalling your first post-birth squalls in this
world."
" Yes, yes — go on," she urged nervously.
" What was she like ? "
" She was a resplendent, golden-brown, or tan-
golden half-caste, a Polynesian queen whose mother
had been a queen before her, whose father was an
Oxford man, an English gentleman, and a real
scholar. Her name was Nomare. She was Queen
of Huahoa. She was barbaric. He was young
enough to out-barbaric her. There was nothing sor-
did in their marriage. He was no penniless adven-
turer. She brought him her island kingdom and
forty thousand subjects. He brought to that island
his fortune —

and it was no inconsiderable fortune.

He built a palace that no South Sea island ever
possessed before or will ever possess again. It was
the real thing, grass-thatched, hand-hewn beams that
were lashed with cocoanut sennit, and all the rest.
It was rooted in the island; it sprouted out of the
island; it belonged, although he fetched Hopkins out
from New York to plan it.
" Heavens ! they had their own royal yacht, their
mountain house, their canoe house the last a
veritable palace in itself. I know. I have been at
great feasts in it— though it was after their time.
Nomare was dead, and no one knew where Graham
was, and a king of collateral line was the ruler.
 176 THE LITTLE LADY

" I told you he out-barbaricked her. Their din-

ner service was gold.- Oh, what's the use in tell-
ing any more. He was only a boy. She was half-
English, half-Polynesian, and a really and truly
queen. They were flowers of their races. They
were a pair of wonderful children. They lived a
fairy tale. And . ..
well, Ernestine, the years
have passed, and Evan Graham has passed from the
realm of the young thing. It will be a remarkable
woman that will ever infatuate him now. Besides,
he's practically broke. Though he didn't wastrel
his money. As much misfortune, and more, than
anything else."
" Paula would be more his kind," Ernestine said
meditatively.
" Yes, indeed," Dick agreed. " Paula, or any
woman as remarkable as Paula, would attract him a
thousand times more than all the sweet, young, lovely
things like you in the world. We oldsters have our
standards, you know."
" And I'll have to put up with the youngsters,"
Ernestine sighed.
" In the meantime, yes," he chuckled. " Remem-
bering, always, that you, too, in time, may grow into
the remarkable, mature woman, who can outfoot a
man like Evan in a foot-race of love for possession."
" But I shall be married long before that," she
pouted.
" Which will be your good fortune, my dear.
And, now, good night. And you are not angry with
me ? "
She smiled pathetically and shook her head, put
up her lips to be kissed, then said as they parted :
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 177

" I promise not to be angry if you will only show

me the way that in the end will lead me to ancient
graybeards like you and Graham."
Dick Forrest, turning off lights as he went, pene-
trated the library, and, while selecting half a dozen
reference volumes on mechanics and physics, smiled
as if pleased with himself at recollection of the inter-
view with his sister-in-law. He was confident that
he had spoken in time and not a moment too soon.
But, half way up the book-concealed spiral staircase
that led to his work room, a remark of Ernestine,
echoing in his consciousness, made him stop from
very suddenness to lean his shoulder against the
wall.— "Paula would be more his kind."
" Silly ass ! " he laughed aloud, continuing on his
way. " And married a dozen years ! "
Nor did he think again about it, until, in bed, on
his sleeping porch, he took a glance at his barometers
and thermometers, and prepared to settle down to
the solution of the electrical speculation that had
been puzzling him. Then it was, as he peered across
the great court to his wife's dark wing and dark
sleeping porch to see if she were still waking, that
Ernestine's remark again echoed. He dismissed it
with a " Silly ass ! " of scorn, lighted a cigarette, and
began running, with trained eye, the indexes of the
books and marking the pages sought with matches.
 CHAPTER XV

T was long after ten in the morning, when

I Graham, straying about restlessly and won-
dering if Paula Forrest ever appeared before
the middle of the day, wandered into the music room.
Despite the fact that he was a several days' guest
in the Big House, so big was it that the music room
was new territory. It was an exquisite room, pos-
sibly thirty-five by sixty and rising to a lofty trussed
ceiling where a warm golden light was diffused from
a skylight of yellow glass. Red tones entered
largely into the walls and furnishing, and the place,
to him, seemed to hold the hush of music.
Graham was lazily contemplating a Keith with its
inevitable triumph of sun-gloried atmosphere and
twilight-shadowed sheep, when, from the tail of his
eye, he saw his hostess come in from the far en-
trance. Again, the sight of her, that was a picture,
gave him the little catch-breath of gasp. She was
clad entirely in white, and looked very young and
quite tall in the sweeping folds of a holoku of elab-
orate simplicity and apparent shapelessness. He
knew the holoku in the home of its origin, where,
on the lanais of Hawaii, it gave charm to a plain
woman and double-folded the charm of a charming
woman.

While they smiled greeting across the room, he

was noting the set of her body, the poise of head
178
 THE LITTLE LADY 179

and frankness of eyes -

all of which seemed articu-
late with a friendly, comradely, " Hello, friends."
At least such was the form Graham's fancy took as
she came toward him.
" You made a mistake with this room," he said
gravely.
" No, don't say that ! But how ? "
" It should have been longer, much longer, twice
as long at least."
66
Why ? " she demanded, with a disapproving
shake of head, while he delighted in the girlish color
in her cheeks that gave the lie to her thirty-eight
years.
" Because, then," he answered, " you should have
had to walk twice as far this morning and my pleas-
ure of watching you would have been correspond-
ingly increased. I've always insisted that the holoku
is the most charming garment ever invented for
women."
" Then it was my holoku and not I," she retorted.
" I see you are like Dick — always with a string on
your compliments, and lo, when we poor sillies start
to nibble, back goes the compliment dragging at the
end of the string.
" Now I want to show you the room," she hurried
on, closing his disclaimer. " Dick gave me a free
hand with it. It's all mine, you see, even to its
proportions."
" And the pictures ? "
" I selected them," she nodded, " every one of
them, and loved them onto the walls myself. Al-
though Dick did quarrel with me over that Verescha-
gin. He agreed on the two Millets and the Corot
 180 THE LITTLE LADY

over there, and on that Isabey; and even conceded

that some Vereschagins might do in a music room,
but not that particular Vereschagin. He's jealous
for our local artists, you see . He wanted more of
them, wanted to show his appreciation of home
talent."
" I don't know your Pacific Coast men's work very
well," Graham said. " Tell me about them. Show
me that - Of course, that's a Keith, there; but
whose is that next one ? It's beautiful. "
" A McComas -" she was answering ; and
Graham, with a pleasant satisfaction, was settling
himself to a half-hour's talk on pictures, when Don-
ald Ware entered with questing eyes that lighted up
at sight of the Little Lady.
His violin was under his arm, and he crossed to
the piano in a brisk, business-like way and proceeded
to lay out music.
" We're going to work till lunch," Paula explained
to Graham. " He swears I'm getting abominably
rusty, and I think he's half right. We'll see you at
lunch. You can stay if you care, of course; but I
warn you it's really going to be work. And we're
going swimming this afternoon. Four o'clock at the
tank, Dick says. Also, he says he's got a new song
he's going to sing then.- What time is it, Mr.
Ware ? "
" Ten minutes to eleven," the musician answered
briefly, with a touch of sharpness.
" You're ahead of time— the engagement was for
eleven. And till eleven you'll have to wait, sir. I
must run and see Dick, first. I haven't said good
morning to him yet."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 181

Well Paula knew her husband's hours. Scribbled

secretly in the back of the note-book that lay always
on the reading stand by her couch were hieroglyphic
notes that reminded her that he had coffee at six-
thirty; might possibly be caught in bed with proof-
sheets or books till eight-forty-five, if not out riding ;
was inaccessible between nine and ten, dictating cor-
respondence to Blake ; was inaccessible between ten
and eleven, conferring with managers and foremen,
while Bonbright, the assistant secretary, took down,
like any court reporter, every word uttered by all
parties in the rapid-fire interviews.
At eleven, unless there were unexpected telegrams
or business, she could usually count on finding Dick
alone for a space, although invariably busy. Pass-
ing the secretaries' room, the click of a typewriter
informed her that one obstacle was removed. In
the library, the sight of Mr. Bonbright hunting a
book for Mr. Manson, the Shorthorn manager, told
her that Dick's hour with his head men was over.
She pressed the button that swung aside a section
of filled book-shelves and revealed the tiny spiral of
steel steps that led up to Dick's work room. Atthe
top, a similar pivoting section of shelves swung
obediently to her press of button and let her noise-
lessly into his room. A shade of vexation passed
across her face as she recognized Jeremy Braxton's
voice. She paused in indecision, neither seeing nor
being seen.
" If we flood we flood," the mine superintendent
was saying. " It will cost a mint — yes, half a
dozen mints — to pump out again. And it's a
damned shame to drown the old Harvest that way."
182 THE LITTLE LADY

" But for this last year the books show that we've
worked at a positive loss," Paula heard Dick take
up. " Every petty bandit from Huerta down to the
last peon who's stolen a horse has gouged us. It's
getting too stiff — taxes extraordinary — bandits,
revolutionists, and federals. We could survive it,
if only the end were in sight; but we have no guar-
antee that this disorder may not last a dozen or
twenty years."
" Just the same, the old Harvest -

think of flood-
ing her ! " the superintendent protested.
" And think of Villa," Dick replied, with a sharp
laugh the bitterness of which did not escape Paula.
" If he wins he says he's going to divide all the land
among the peons. The next logical step will be the
mines. How much do you think we've coughed up
to the constitutionalists in the past twelvemonth ? "
" Over a hundred and twenty thousand," Braxton
answered promptly. " Not counting that fifty
thousand cold bullion to Torenas before he retreated.
He jumped his army at Guaymas and headed for
Europe with it —I wrote you all that."
" If we keep the workings afloat, Jeremy, they'll
go on gouging, gouge without end, Amen. I think
we'd better flood. If we can make wealth more
efficiently than those rapscallions, let us show them
that we can destroy wealth with the same facility."
" That's what I tell them. And they smile and
repeat that such and such a free will offering, under
exigent circumstances, would be very acceptable to
the revolutionary chiefs —meaning themselves.
The big chiefs never finger one peso in ten of it.
Good Lord ! I show them what we've done.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 183

Steady work for five thousand peons. Wages raised

from ten centavos a day to a hundred and ten. I
show them peons — ten-centavo men when we took
them, and five-peso men when I showed them. And
the same old smile and the same old itching palm,
and the same old acceptability of a free will offering
from us to the sacred cause of the revolution. By
God! Old Diaz was a robber, but he was a decent
robber. I said to Arranzo : ' If we shut down,
here's five thousand Mexicans out of a
job -

what'll you do with them ? ' And Arranzo smiled

and answered me pat. ' Do with them ? ' he said.
' Why, put guns in their hands and march 'em down
"

to take Mexico City.'

In imagination Paula could see Dick's disgusted
shrug of shoulders as she heard him say :
" The curse of it is that the stuff is there, and
that we're the only fellows that can get it out. The
Mexicans can't do it. They haven't the brains. All
they've got is the guns, and they're making us shell
out more than we make. There's only one thing for
us, Jeremy. We'll forget profits for a year or so,
lay off the men, and just keep the engineer force on
and the pumping going."
" I threw that into Arranzo," Jeremy Braxton's
voice boomed. " And what was his comeback ?
That if we laid off the peons, he'd see to it that the
engineers laid off, too, and the mine could flood and
be damned to us.— No, he didn't say that last.
He just smiled, but the smile meant the same thing.
For two cents I'd a-wrung his yellow neck, except
that there'd have been another patriot in his boots
and in my office next day proposing a stiffer gouge.
184 THE LITTLE LADY

So Arranzo got his ' bit,' and, on top of it, before he

went across to join the main bunch around Juarez,
he let his men run off three hundred of our mules -

thirty thousand dollars' worth of mule-flesh right

there, after I'd sweetened him, too. The yellow
skunk ! "
" Who is revolutionary chief in our diggings right
now ? " Paula heard her husband ask with one of his
abrupt shifts that she knew of old time tokened his
drawing together the many threads of a situation
and proceeding to action.
" Raoul Bena . "
" What's his rank ? "
" Colonel— he's got about seventy ragamuffins. "
" What did he do before he quit work ? "
" Sheep-herder."
" Very well." Dick's utterance was quick and
sharp . " You've got to play-act. Become a pa-
triot. Hike back as fast as God will let you.
Sweeten this Raoul Bena. He'll see through your
play, or he's no Mexican. Sweeten him and tell him
you'll make him a general — a second Villa."
" Lord, Lord, yes, but how ? " Jeremy Braxton
demanded.
" By putting him at the head of an army of five
thousand. Lay off the men. Make him make them
volunteer. We're safe, because Huerta is doomed.
Tell him you're a real patriot. Give each man a
rifle. We'll stand that for a last gouge, and it will
prove you a patriot. Promise every man his job
back when the war is over. Let them and Raoul
Bena depart with your blessing. Keep on the pump-
ing force only. And if we cut out profits for a year
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 185

or so, at the same time we are cutting down losses.

And perhaps we won't have to flood old Harvest
after all."
Paula smiled to herself at Dick's solution as she
stole back down the spiral on her way to the music
room. She was depressed, but not by the Harvest
Group situation. Ever since her marriage there had
always been trouble in the working of the Mexican
mines Dick had inherited. Her depression was due
to her having missed her morning greeting to him.
But this depression vanished at meeting Graham,
who had lingered with Ware at the piano and who,
at her coming, was evidencing signs of departure.
،،
" Don't run away," she urged. Stay and wit-
ness a spectacle of industry that should nerve you up
to starting on that book Dick has been telling me
about."
 CHAPTER XVI

N Dick's face, at lunch, there was no sign

Ο anybody have guessed that Jeremy Braxton's
of trouble over the Harvest Group; nor could

visit had boded anything less gratifying than a re-

port of unfailing earnings. Although Adolph Weil
had gone on the early morning train, which adver-
tised that the business which had brought him had
been transacted with Dick at some unheard of hour,
Graham discovered a greater company than ever at
the table. Besides a Mrs. Tully, who seemed a
stout and elderly society matron, and whom Graham
could not make out, there were three new men, of
whose identity he gleaned a little : a Mr. Gulhuss,
State Veterinary; a Mr. Deacon, a portrait painter
of evident note on the Coast; and a Captain Lester,
then captain of a Pacific Mail liner, who had sailed
skipper for Dick nearly twenty years before and
who had helped Dick to his navigation.
The meal was at its close, and the superintendent
was glancing at his watch, when Dick said :
" Jeremy, I want to show you what I've been up
to. We'll go right now. You'll have time on your
way to the train."
" Let us all go," Paula suggested, " and make a
party of it. I'm dying to see it myself, Dick's been
so obscure about it."
Sanctioned by Dick's nod, she was ordering ma-
chines and saddle horses the next moment.
186
 THE LITTLE LADY 187

" What is it? " Graham queried, when she had

finished.
" Oh, one of Dick's stunts. He's always after
something new. This is an invention. He swears
it will revolutionize farming — that is, small farm-
ing. I have the general idea of it, but I haven't
seen it set up yet. It was ready a week ago, but
there was some delay about a cable or something
concerning an adjustment."
" There's billions in it ... if it works," Dick
smiled over the table. " Billions for the farmers
of the world, and perhaps a trifle of royalty for
me if it works ."
" But what is it? " O'Hay asked. " Music in the
dairy barns to make the cows give down their milk
more placidly ? "
" Every farmer his own plowman while sitting
on his front porch," Dick baffled back. " In fact,
the labor-eliminating intermediate stage between soil
production and sheer laboratory production of food.
But wait till you see it. Gulhuss, this is where I kill
my own business, if it works, for it will do away
with the one horse of every ten-acre farmer between
here and Jericho."
In ranch machines and on saddle animals, the
company was taken a mile beyond the dairy center,
where a level field was fenced squarely off and con-
tained, as Dick announced, just precisely ten acres.
" Behold," he said, " the one-man and no-horse
farm where the farmer sits on the porch. Please im-
agine the porch."
In the center of the field was a stout steel pole, at
least twenty feet in height and guyed very low.
 188 THE LITTLE LADY

From a drum on top of the pole a thin wire cable ran

to the extreme edge of the field and was attached
to the steering lever of a small gasoline tractor.
About the tractor two mechanics fluttered. At com-
mand from Dick they cranked the motor and started
it on its way.
" This is the porch," Dick said. " Just imagine
we're all that future farmer sitting in the shade and
reading the morning paper while the manless, horse-
less plowing goes on."
Alone, unguided, the drum on the head of the pole
in the center winding up the cable, the tractor, at the
circumference permitted by the cable, turned a single
furrow as it described a circle, or, rather, an inward
trending spiral about the field.
" No horse, no driver, no plowman, nothing but
the farmer to crank the tractor and start it on its
way," Dick exulted, as the uncanny mechanism turned
up the brown soil and continued unguided, ever
spiraling toward the field's center. " Plow, harrow,
roll, seed, fertilize, cultivate, harvest — all from the
front porch. And where the farmer can buy juice
from a power company, all he, or his wife, will have
to do is press the button, and he to his newspaper,
and she to her pie-crust."
" All you need, now, to make it absolutely per-
fect," Graham praised, " is to square the circle."
" Yes," Mr. Gulhuss agreed. " As it is, a circle
in a square field loses some acreage."
Graham's face advertised a mental arithmetic
trance for a minute, when he announced : " Loses,
roughly, three acres out of every ten."
" Sure, " Dick concurred. " But the farmer has
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 189

to have his front porch somewhere on his ten acres.

And the front porch represents the house, the barn,
the chicken yard and the various outbuildings .
Very well. Let him get tradition out of his mind,
and, instead of building these things in the center
of his ten acres, let him build them on the three acres
of fringe. And let him plant his fruit and shade
trees and berry bushes on the fringe. When you
come to consider it, the traditionary method of erect-
ing the buildings in the center of a rectangular ten
acres compels him to plow around the center in
broken rectangles."
Gulhuss nodded enthusiastically. " Sure. And
there's always the roadway from the center out to
the county road or right of way. That breaks the
efficiency of his plowing. Break ten acres into the
consequent smaller rectangles, and it's expensive cul-
tivation."
" Wish navigation was as automatic," was Captain
Lester's contribution .
" Or portrait painting," laughed Rita Wainwright
with a significant glance at Mr. Deacon.
" Or musical criticism," Lute remarked, with no
glance at all, but with a pointedness of present com-
pany that brought from O'Hay :
" Or just being a charming young woman."
" What price for the outfit? " Jeremy Braxton
asked.
66
Right now, we could manufacture and lay down,
at a proper profit, for five hundred. If the thing
came into general use, with up to date, large-scale
factory methods, three hundred. But say five hun-
dred. And write off fifteen per cent, for interest
190 THE LITTLE LADY

and constant, it would cost the farmer seventy dol-

lars a year. What ten-acre farmer, on two-hun-
dred-dollar land, who keeps books, can keep a horse
for seventy dollars a year ? And on top of that,
it would save him, in labor, personal or hired, at
the abjectest minimum, two hundred dollars a year."
" But what guides it ? " Rita asked.
" The drum on the post. The drum is graduated
for the complete radius—which took some tall
figuring, I assure you— and the cable, winding
around the drum and shortening, draws the tractor
in toward the center."
" There are lots of objections to its general in-
troduction, even among small farmers," Gulhuss
said.
Dick nodded affirmation.
" Sure," he replied. " I have over forty noted
down and classified. And I've as many more for the
machine itself. If the thing is a success, it will take
a long time to perfect it and introduce it."
Graham found himself divided between watching
the circling tractor and casting glances at the picture
Paula Forrest was on her mount. It was her first
day on The Fawn, which was the Palomina mare
Hennessy had trained for her. Graham smiled with
secret approval of her femininity ; for Paula, whether
she had designed her habit for the mare, or had
selected one most peculiarly appropriate, had
achieved a triumph .
In place of a riding coat, for the afternoon was
warm, she wore a tan linen blouse with white turn-
back collar. A short skirt, made like the lower
part of a riding coat, reached the knees, and from
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 191

knees to entrancing little bespurred champagne boots

tight riding trousers showed. Skirt and trousers
were of fawn-colored silk corduroy. Soft white
gauntlets on her hands matched with the collar in
the one emphasis of color. Her head was bare, the
hair done tight and low around her ears and nape
of neck.
" I don't see how you can keep such a skin and
expose yourself to the sun this way," Graham ven-
tured, in mild criticism.
" I don't," she smiled with a dazzle of white teeth.
" That is, I don't expose my face this way more than
a few times a year. I'd like to, because I love the
sun-gold burn in my hair; but I don't dare a thorough
tanning."
The mare frisked, and a breeze of air blew back
a flap of skirt, showing an articulate knee where the
trouser leg narrowed tightly over it. Again Graham
visioned the white round of knee pressed into the
round muscles of the swimming Mountain Lad, as
he noted the firm knee-grip on her pigskin English
saddle, quite new and fawn-colored to match costume
and horse.
When the magneto on the tractor went wrong,
and the mechanics busied themselves with it in the
midst of the partly plowed field, the company, under
Paula's guidance, leaving Dick behind with his in-
vention, resolved itself into a pilgrimage among the
brood-centers on the way to the swimming tank.
Mr. Crellin, the hog-manager, showed them Lady
Isleton, who, with her prodigious, fat, recent
progeny of eleven, won various naive encomiums,
while Mr. Crellin warmly proclaimed at least four
192 THE LITTLE LADY

times, " And not a runt, not a runt, in the bunch."

Other glorious brood-sows, of Berkshire, Duroc-
Jersey, and O. I. C. blood, they saw till they were
wearied, and new-born kids and lambs, and rotund
does and ewes . From center to center, Paula kept
the telephones warning ahead of the party's coming,
so that Mr. Manson waited to exhibit the great King
Polo, and his broad-backed Shorthorn harem, and
the Shorthorn harems of bulls that were only little
less than King Polo in magnificence and record; and
Parkman, the Jersey manager, was on hand, with
staffed assistants, to parade Sensational Drake,
Golden Jolly, Fontaine Royal, Oxford Master, and
Karnak's Fairy Boy - -blue ribbon bulls, all, and
founders and scions of noble houses of butter-fat re-
nown, and Rosaire Queen, Standby's Dam, Golden
Jolly's Lass, Olga's Pride, and Gertie of Maitlands
—equally blue-ribboned and blue-blooded Jersey
matrons in the royal realm of butter-fat; and Mr.
Mendenhall, who had charge of the Shires, proudly
exhibited a string of mighty stallions, led by the
mighty Mountain Lad, and a longer string of
matrons, headed by the Fotherington Princess of the :
silver whinny. Even old Alden Bessie, the Prin-
cess's dam, retired to but part-day's work, he sent
for that they might render due honor to so notable
a dam.
As four o'clock approached, Donald Ware, not
keen on swimming, returned in one of the machines
to the Big House, and Mr. Gulhuss remained to dis-
cuss Shires with Mr. Mendenhall. Dick was at the
tank when the party arrived, and the girls were im-
mediately insistent for the new song.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 193

" It isn't exactly a new song," Dick explained, his

gray eyes twinkling roguery, " and it's not my song.
It was sung in Japan before I was born, and, I doubt
not, before Columbus discovered America. Also, it
is a duet— a competitive duet with forfeit penalties
attached. Paula will have to sing it with me.- I'll
teach you. Sit down there, that's right.- Now
all the rest of you gather around and sit down."
Still in her riding habit, Paula sat down on the
concrete, facing her husband, in the center of the
sitting audience. Under his direction, timing her
movements to his, she slapped her hands on her
knees, slapped her palms together, and slapped her
palms against his palms much in the fashion of the
nursery game of " Bean Porridge Hot." Then he
sang the song, which was short and which she quickly
picked up, singing it with him and clapping the ac-
cent. While the air of it was orientally catchy, it
was chanted slowly, almost monotonously, but it was
quickly provocative of excitement to the spectators :
" Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,
Jong-Jong, Keena-Keena,
Yo-ko-ham-a, Nag-a-sak-i,
Kobe-mar- o - hey !!! "

The last syllable, hoy, was uttered suddenly, ex-

plosively, and an octave and more higher than the
pitch of the melody. At the same moment that it
was uttered, Paula's and Dick's hands were abruptly
shot toward each other's, either clenched or open.
The point of the game was that Paula's hands,
open or closed, at the instant of uttering hoy,
should match Dick's. Thus, the first time, she did
194 THE LITTLE LADY

match him, both his and her hands being closed,

whereupon he took off his hat and tossed it into
Lute's lap.
" My forfeit," he explained. " Come on, Paul,
again. " And again they sang and clapped :
" Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena,
Jong-Jong, Keena-Keena,
Yo-ko-ham-a, Nag-a-sak-i,
Kobe-mar- o - hey !!! "

This time, with the hoy, her hands were closed and
his were open.
" Forfeit ! —

forfeit ! " the girls cried.

She looked her costume over with alarm, asking,
" What can I give? "
" A hair pin," Dick advised; and one of her tur-
tleshell hair pins joined his hat in Lute's lap.
" Bother it ! " she exclaimed, when the last of her
hair pins had gone the same way, she having failed
seven times to Dick's once. " I can't see why I
should be so slow and stupid. Besides, Dick, you're
too clever. I never could out-guess you or out-an-
ticipate you."
Again they sang the song. She lost, and, to Mrs.
Tully's shocked " Paula ! " she forfeited a spur and
threatened a boot when the remaining spur should be
gone. A winning streak of three compelled Dick
to give up his wrist watch and both spurs. Then
she lost her wrist watch and the remaining spur.
" Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena," they began again,
while Mrs. Tully remonstrated, " Now, Paula, you
simply must stop this.- Dick, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 195

But Dick, emitting a triumphant " Hoy! " won,

and joined in the laughter as Paula took off one of
her little champagne boots and added it to the heap
in Lute's lap .
" It's all right, Aunt Martha," Paula assured Mrs.
Tully. " Mr. Ware's not here, and he's the only
one who would be shocked.- Come on, Dick.
You can't win every time."
" Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena," she chanted on with
her husband.
The repetition, at first slow, had accelerated
steadily, so that now they fairly rippled through with
it, while their slapping, striking palms made a con-
tinuous patter. The exercise and excitement had
added to the sun's action on her skin, so that her
laughing face was all a rosy glow.
Evan Graham, a silent spectator, was aware of
hurt and indignity. He knew the " Jong-Keena " of
old time from the geishas of the tea houses of Nip-
pon, and, despite the unconventionality that ruled
the Forrests and the Big House, he experienced
shock in that Paula should take part in such a game.
It did not enter his head at the moment that he
would have been merely curious to see how far the
madness would go had the player been Lute, or
Ernestine, or Rita. Not till afterward did he realize
that his concern and sense of outrage were due to the
fact that the player was Paula, and that, therefore,
she was bulking bigger in his imagination than he
was conscious of. What he was conscious of at the
moment was that he was growing angry and that he
had deliberately to check himself from protesting.
By this time Dick's cigarette case and matches
 196 THE LITTLE LADY

and Paula's second boot, belt, skirt-pin, and wedding

ring had joined the mound of forfeits. Mrs. Tully,
her face set in stoic resignation, was silent.
" Jong-Keena, Jong-Keena," Paula laughed and
sang on, and Graham heard Ernestine laugh to Bert,
" I don't see what she can spare next."
" Well, you know her," he heard Bert answer.
" She's game once she gets started, and it certainly
looks like she's started. "
" Hoy! " Paula and Dick cried simultaneously, as
they thrust out their hands.
But Dick's were closed, and hers were open.
Graham watched her vainly quest her person for the
consequent forfeit.
" Come on, Lady Godiva," Dick commanded.
" You hae sung, you hae danced; now pay the piper."
" Was the man a fool ? " was Graham's thought.
"And a man with a wife like that."
" Well, " Paula sighed, her fingers playing with
the fastenings of her blouse, " if I must, I must."
Raging inwardly, Graham averted his gaze, and
kept it averted. There was a pause, in which he
knew everybody must be hanging on what she would
do next. Then came a giggle from Ernestine, a
burst of laughter from all, and, " A frame-up ! "
from Bert, that overcame Graham's resoluteness.
He looked quickly. The Little Lady's blouse was
off, and, from the waist up, she appeared in her swim-
ming suit. It was evident that she had dressed over
it for the ride.
" Come on, Lute —you next," Dick was chal-
lenging.
But Lute, not similarly prepared for Jong-Keena,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 197

blushingly led the retreat of the girls to the dress-

ing rooms.
Graham watched Paula poise at the forty-foot top
of the diving scaffold and swan-dive beautifully into
the tank; heard Bert's admiring " Oh, you Annette
Kellerman ! " and, still chagrined by the trick that
had threatened to outrage him, fell to wondering
about the wonder woman, the Little Lady of the
Big House, and how she had happened so wonder-
fully to be. As he fetched down the length of tank,
under water, moving with leisurely strokes and with
open eyes watching the shoaling bottom, it came to
him that he did not know anything about her. She
was Dick Forrest's wife. That was all he knew.
How she had been born, how she had lived, how and
where her past had been — of all this he knew noth-
ing.
Ernestine had told him that Lute and she were half
sisters of Paula. That was one bit of data, at any
rate. (Warned by the increasing brightness of the
bottom that he had nearly reached the end of the
tank, and recognizing Dick's and Bert's legs inter-
twined in what must be a wrestling bout, Graham
turned about, still under water, and swam back a
score or so of feet. ) There was that Mrs. Tully
whom Paula had addressed as Aunt Martha. Was
she truly an aunt? Or was she a courtesy Aunt
through sisterhood with the mother of Lute and
Ernestine ?
He broke surface, was hailed by the others to
join in bull-in-the-ring; in which strenuous sport, for
the next half hour, he was compelled more than once
to marvel at the litheness and agility, as well as
198 THE LITTLE LADY

strategy, of Paula in her successful efforts at escap-

ing through the ring. Concluding the game through
weariness, breathing hard, the entire party raced the
length of the tank and crawled out to rest in the
sunshine in a circle about Mrs. Tully.
Soon there was more fun afoot, and Paula was
contending impossible things with Mrs. Tully.
66

Now, Aunt Martha, just because you never

learned to swim is no reason for you to take such a
position. I am a real swimmer, and I tell you I can
dive right into the tank here, and stay under for ten
minutes ."
" Nonsense, child," Mrs. Tully beamed. " Your
father, when he was young, a great deal younger than
you, my dear, could stay under water longer than any
other man; and his record, as I know, was three
minutes and forty seconds, as I very well know, for
I held the watch myself and kept the time when he
won against Harry Selby on a wager."
" Oh, I know my father was some man in his
time," Paula swaggered; " but times have changed.
If I had the old dear here right now, in all his youth-
ful excellence, I'd drown him if he tried to stay under
water with me. Ten minutes ? Of course I can do
ten minutes. And I will. You hold the watch,
Aunt Martha, and time me. Why, it's as easy
as-"
" Shooting fish in a bucket," Dick completed for
her.
Paula climbed to the platform above the spring-
board.
" Time me when I'm in the air, " she said.
" Make your turn and a half," Dick called.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 199

She nodded, smiled, and simulated a prodigious

effort at filling her lungs to their utmost capacity.
Graham watched enchanted . A diver himself, he
had rarely seen the turn and a half attempted by
women other than professionals. Her wet suit of
light blue and green silk clung closely to her, show-
ing the lines of her justly proportioned body. With
what appeared to be an agonized gulp for the last
cubic inch of air her lungs could contain, she sprang
up, out, and down, her body vertical and stiff, her
legs straight, her feet close together as they impacted
on the springboard end. Flung into the air by the
board, she doubled her body into a ball, made a com-
plete revolution, then straightened out in perfect
diver's form, and in a perfect dive, with scarcely a
ripple, entered the water.
" A Toledo blade would have made more splash,"
was Graham's verdict.
" If only I could dive like that," Ernestine
breathed her admiration. " But I never shall.
Dick says diving is a matter of timing, and that's
why Paula does it so terribly well. She's got the
sense of time —"
" And of abandon," Graham added.
" Of willed abandon," Dick qualified.
"Of relaxation by effort," Graham agreed.
" I've never seen a professional do so perfect a turn
and a half."
" And I'm prouder of it than she is," Dick pro-
claimed. " You see, I taught her, though I confess
it was an easy task. She coordinates almost effort-
lessly. And that, along with her will and sense of
time — why her first attempt was better than fair."
200 THE LITTLE LADY

" Paula is a remarkable woman," Mrs. Tully said

proudly, her eyes fluttering between the second hand
of the watch and the unbroken surface of the pool.
" Women never swim so well as men. But she
does. Three minutes and forty seconds ! She's
beaten her father ! "
" But she won't stay under any five minutes, much
less ten," Dick solemnly stated. " She'll burst her
lungs first."
At four minutes, Mrs. Tully began to show excite-
ment and to look anxiously from face to face. Cap-
tain Lester, not in the secret, scrambled to his feet
with an oath and dived into the tank.
" Something has happened," Mrs. Tully said with
controlled quietness. " She hurt herself on that
dive. Go in after her, you men. "
But Graham and Bert and Dick, meeting under
water, gleefully grinned and squeezed hands. Dick
made signs for them to follow, and led the way
through the dark-shadowed water into the crypt,
where, treading water, they joined Paula in subdued
whisperings and gigglings .
" Just came to make sure you were all right," Dick
explained. " And now we've got to beat it.— You
first, Bert. I'll follow Evan."
And, one by one, they went down through the dark
water and came up on the surface of the pool. By
this time Mrs. Tully was on her feet and standing
by the edge of the tank.
" If I thought this was one of your tricks, Dick
Forrest, " she began .
But Dick, paying no attention, acting preter
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 201

naturally calmly, was directing the men loudly

enough for her to hear.
" We've got to make this systematic, fellows.
You, Bert, and you, Evan, join with me. We start
at this end, five feet apart, and search the bottom
across. Then move along and repeat it back."
" Don't exert yourselves, gentlemen," Mrs. Tully
called, beginning to laugh. " As for you, Dick, you
come right out. I want to box your ears ."
" Take care of her, you girls," Dick shouted.
" She's got hysterics."
" I haven't, but I will have," she laughed.
" But damn it all, madam, this is no laughing mat-
ter ! " Captain Lester spluttered breathlessly, as he
prepared for another trip to explore the bottom.
"Are you on, Aunt Martha, really and truly on ? "
Dick asked, after the valiant mariner had gone
down.
Mrs. Tully nodded. " But keep it up, Dick,
you've got one dupe. Elsie Coghlan's mother told
me about it in Honolulu last year."
Not until eleven minutes had elapsed did the smil-
ing face of Paula break the surface. Simulating ex-
haustion, she slowly crawled out and sank down
panting near her aunt. Captain Lester, really ex-
hausted by his strenuous exertions at rescue, studied
Paula keenly, then marched to the nearest pillar
and meekly bumped his head three times against the
concrete .
" I'm afraid I didn't stay down ten minutes,"
Paula said. " But I wasn't much under that, was I,
Aunt Martha? "
202 THE LITTLE LADY

" You weren't much under at all," Mrs. Tully re-

plied, " if it's my opinion you were asking. I'm sur-
prised that you are even wet.- There, there,
breathe naturally, child. The play-acting is unneces-
sary. I remember, when I was a young girl, trav-
eling in India, there was a school of fakirs who
leaped into deep wells and stayed down much longer
than you, child, much longer indeed."
" You knew ! " Paula charged.
" But you didn't know I did," her Aunt retorted,
" And therefore your conduct was criminal. When
you consider a woman of my age, with my heart -"
" And with your blessed, brass-tack head," Paula
cried.
" For two apples I'd box your ears."
" And for one apple I'd hug you, wet as I am, "
Paula laughed back. " Anyway, we did fool Cap-
tain Lester.— Didn't we, Captain ? "
" Don't speak to me," that doughty mariner mut-
tered darkly. " I'm busy with myself, meditating
what form my vengeance shall take. - As for you,
Mr. Dick Forrest, I'm divided between blowing
up your dairy, or hamstringing Mountain Lad.
Maybe I'll do both. In the meantime I am going
out to kick that mare you ride."

Dick on The Outlaw, and Paula on The Fawn,

rode back side by side to the Big House.
" How do you like Graham ? " he asked.
" Splendid," was her reply. " He's your type,
Dick. He's universal, like you, and he's got the
same world-marks branded on him - the Seven
Seas, the books, and all the rest. He's an artist,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 203

too, and pretty well all-around. And he's good fun.

Have you noticed his smile ? It's irresistible. It
makes one want to smile with him."
" And he's got his serious scars, as well," Dick
nodded concurrence .
" Yes— right in the corners of the eyes, just after
he has smiled, you'll see them come. They're not 1

tired marks exactly, but rather the old eternal ques-

tions : Why ? What for? What's it worth?
What's it all about ? "

And bringing up the rear of the cavalcade, Ernes-

tine and Graham talked.
" Dick's deep," she was saying. " You don't
know him any too well. He's dreadfully deep. I
know him a little. Paula knows him a lot. But
very few others ever get under the surface of him.
He's a real philosopher, and he has the control of a
store or an Englishman, and he can play-act to fool
the world."

At the long hitching rails under the oaks, where

the dismounting party gathered, Paula was in gales
of laughter.
" Go on, go on," she urged Dick, " more, more."
" She's been accusing me of exhausting my vocabu-
lary in naming the house-boys by my system," he ex-
plained.
" And he's given me at least forty more names in
a minute and a half.- Go on, Dick, more."
" Then," he said, striking a chant, " we can have
Oh Sin and Oh Pshaw, Oh Sing and Oh Song, Oh
Sung and Oh Sang, Oh Last and Oh Least, Oh Ping
204 THE LITTLE LADY

and Oh Pong, Oh Some, Oh More, and Oh Most,

Oh Naught and Oh Nit ..."
And Dick jingled away into the house still chant-
ing his extemporized directory.
 CHAPTER XVII

WEEK of dissatisfaction and restlessness en-

A sued for Graham. Torn between belief that

his business was to leave the Big House on
the first train, and desire to see, and see more of
Paula, to be with her, and to be more with her -

he succeeded in neither leaving nor in seeing as much

of her as during the first days of his visit.
At first, and for the five days that he lingered,
the young violinist monopolized nearly her entire
time of visibility. Often Graham strayed into the
music room, and, quite neglected by the pair, sat
for moody half-hours listening to their " work."
They were oblivious of his presence, either flushed
and absorbed with the passion of their music, or wip-
ing their foreheads and chatting and laughing com-
panionably in pauses to rest. That the young
musician loved her with an ardency that was almost
painful, was patent to Graham; but what hurt him
was the abandon of devotion with which she some-
times looked at Ware after he had done something
exceptionally fine. In vain Graham tried to tell
himself that all this was mental on her part — purely
delighted appreciation of the other's artistry. Nev-
ertheless, being man, it hurt, and continued to hurt,
until he could no longer suffer himself to remain.
Once, chancing into the room at the end of a
205
 206 THE LITTLE LADY

Schumann song and just after Ware had departed,

Graham found Paula still seated at the piano, an
expression of rapt dreaming on her face. She re-
garded him almost unrecognizingly, gathered her-
self mechanically together, uttered an absent-minded
commonplace or so, and left the room. Despite his
vexation and hurt, Graham tried to think it mere ar-
tist-dreaming on her part, a listening to the echo of
the just-played music in her soul. But women were
curious creatures, he could not help moralizing, and
were prone to lose their hearts most strangely and
inconsequentially. Might it not be that by his very
music this youngster of a man was charming the
woman of her ?
With the departure of Ware, Paula Forrest re-
tired almost completely into her private wing behind
the door without a knob. Nor did this seem un-
usual, Graham gleaned from the household.
" Paula is a woman who finds herself very good
company, " Ernestine explained, " and she often goes
in for periods of aloneness, when Dick is the only
person who sees her."
" Which is not flattering to the rest of the com-
pany," Graham smiled.
" Which makes her such good company whenever
she is in company," Ernestine retorted.
The driftage through the Big House was decreas-
ing. A few guests, on business or friendship, con-
tinued to come, but more departed. Under Oh Joy
and his Chinese staff the Big House ran so friction-
lessly and so perfectly, that entertainment of guests
seemed little part of the host's duties. The guests
largely entertained themselves and one another.
-

OF THE BIG HOUSE 207

Dick rarely appeared, even for a moment, until

lunch, and Paula, now carrying out her seclusion pro-
gram, never appeared before dinner.
" Rest cure," Dick laughed one noon, and chal-
lenged Graham to a tournament with boxing gloves,
single-sticks , and foils.
" And now's the time," he told Graham, as they
breathed between bouts, " for you to tackle your
book. I'm only one of the many who are looking
forward to reading it, and I'm looking forward
hard. Got a letter from Havely yesterday — he
mentioned it, and wondered how far along you
were."
So Graham, in his tower room, arranged his notes
and photographs, schemed out the work, and plunged
into the opening chapters. So immersed did he be-
come that his nascent interest in Paula might have
languished, had it not been for meeting her each
evening at dinner. Then, too, until Ernestine and
Lute left for Santa Barbara, there were afternoon
swims and rides and motor trips to the pastures of
the Miramar Hills and the upland ranges of the
Anselmo Mountains. Other trips they made, some-
times accompanied by Dick, to his great dredgers
working in the Sacramento basin, or his dam-build-
ing on the Little Coyote and Los Cuatos creeks, or
to his five-thousand-acre colony of twenty-acre
farmers, where he was trying to enable two hun-
dred and fifty heads of families, along with their
families, to make good on the soil.
That Paula sometimes went for long solitary rides,
Graham knew, and, once, he caught her dismounting
from the Fawn at the hitching rails .
 208 THE LITTLE LADY

" Don't you think you are spoiling that mare for
riding in company ? " he twitted.
Paula laughed and shook her head.
" Well, then," he asserted stoutly, " I'm spoiling
for a ride with you."
"There's Lute, and Ernestine, and Bert, and all
the rest."
" This is new country," he contended. " And one
learns country through the people who know it.
I've seen it through the eyes of Lute, and Ernestine
and all the rest; but there is a lot I haven't seen and
which I can see only through your eyes."
" A pleasant theory," she evaded. "A- a sort
of landscape vampirism."
" But without the ill effects of vampirism, " he
urged quickly.
Her answer was slow in coming. Her look into
his eyes was frank and straight, and he could guess
her words were weighed and gauged.
" I don't know about that, " was all she said
finally; but his fancy leaped at the several words,
ranging and conjecturing their possible connota-
tions.
" But we have so much we might be saying to each
other," he tried again. " So much we ...
ought
to be saying to each other."
" So I apprehend," she answered quietly; and
again that frank, straight look accompanied her
speech.
So she did apprehend— the thought of it was
flame to him, but his tongue was not quick enough to
serve him to escape the cool, provoking laugh as she
turned into the house.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 209

Still the company of the Big House thinned.

Paula's aunt, Mrs. Tully, much to Graham's dis-
appointment (for he had expected to learn from her
much that he wanted to know of Paula) , had gone
after only a several days' stay. There was vague
talk of her return for a longer stay; but, just back
i from Europe, she declared herself burdened with a
round of duty visits which must be performed be-
fore her pleasure visiting began.
O'Hay, the critic, had been compelled to linger
several days in order to live down the disastrous cul-
mination of the musical raid made upon him by the
philosophers. The idea and the trick had been
Dick's. Combat had joined early in the evening,
when a seeming chance remark of Ernestine had
enabled Aaron Hancock to fling the first bomb into
the thick of O'Hay's deepest convictions. Dar
Hyal, a willing and eager ally, had charged around
the flank with his blastic theory of music and taken
O'Hay in reverse . And the battle had raged until
the hot-headed Irishman, beside himself with the
grueling the pair of skilled logomachists were giving
him, accepted with huge relief the kindly invitation
of Terrence McFane to retire with him to the tran-
quillity and repose of the stag room, where, over a
soothing highball and far from the barbarians, the
two of them could have a heart to heart talk on real
music. At two in the morning, wild-eyed and be-
fuddled, O'Hay had been led to bed by the upright-
walking and unshakably steady Terrence.
" Never mind," Ernestine had told O'Hay later,
with a twinkle in her eye that made him guess the
plot. " It was only to be expected. Those rattle-
 210 THE LITTLE LADY

brained philosophers would drive even a saint to

drink."
" I thought you were safe in Terrence's hands, "
had been Dick's mock apology. " A pair of Irish-
men, you know. I'd forgot Terrence was case-hard-
ened. Do you know, after he said good night to
i
you, he came up to me for a yarn. And he was
steady as a rock. He mentioned casually of having
had several sips, so I ... I ... never dreamed
... er that he had indisposed you."
When Lute and Ernestine departed for Santa Bar-
bara, Bert Wainwright and his sister remembered
their long-neglected home in Sacramento. A pair of
painters, proteges of Paula, arrived the same day.
But they were little in evidence, spending long days
in the hills with a trap and driver and smoking long
pipes in the stag room.
The free and easy life of the Big House went on
in its frictionless way. Dick worked. Graham
worked. Paula maintained her seclusion. The
sages from the madrono grove strayed in for wordy
dinners —and wordy evenings, except when Paula
-

played for them. Automobile parties, from Sacra-

mento, Wickenberg, and other valley towns, con-
tinued to drop in unexpectedly, but never to the con-
fusion of Oh Joy and the house boys, whom Graham
saw, on occasion, with twenty minutes' warning, seat
a score of unexpected guests to a perfect dinner.
And there were even nights - - rare ones —when
only Dick and Graham and Paula sat at dinner, and
when, afterward, the two men yarned for an hour
before an early bed, while she played soft things
to herself or disappeared earlier than they.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 211

But one moonlight evening, when the Watsons

and Masons and Wombolds arrived in force,
Graham found himself out, when every bridge table
was made up. Paula was at the piano. As he ap-
proached he caught the quick expression of pleasure
in her eyes at sight of him, which as quickly vanished.
She made a slight movement as if to rise, which did
not escape his notice any more than did her quiet
mastery of the impulse that left her seated.
She was immediately herself as he had always seen
her— although it was little enough he had seen of
her, he thought, as he talked whatever came into his
head, and rummaged among her songs with her.
Now one and now another song he tried with her,
subduing his high baritone to her light soprano with
such success as to win cries of more from the bridge
players.
Yes, I am positively aching to be out again over
the world with Dick," she told him in a pause. "If
we could only start to-morrow ! But Dick can't start
yet. He's in too deep with too many experiments
and adventures on the ranch here. Why, what do
you think he's up to now ? As if he did not have
enough on his hands, he's going to revolutionize the
sales end, or, at least, the California and Pacific
Coast portion of it, by making the buyers come to the
ranch."
" But they do do that," Graham said. " The first
man I met here was a buyer from Idaho."
" Oh, but Dick means as an institution, you know
— to make them come en masse at a stated time.
Not simple auction sales, either, though he says he
will bait them with a bit of that to excite interest.
212 THE LITTLE LADY

It will be an annual fair, to last three days, in which

he will be the only exhibitor. He's spending half
his mornings now in conference with Mr. Agar and
Mr. Pitts . Mr. Agar is his sales manager, and Mr.
Pitts his showman. "
She sighed and rippled her fingers along the key-
board.
" But, oh, if only we could get away—Timbuctoo,
Mokpo, or Jericho."
" Don't tell me you've ever been to Mokpo,"
Graham laughed.
She nodded. " Cross my heart, solemnly, hope to
die. It was with Dick in the All Away and in the
long ago. It might almost be said we honeymooned
in Mokpo."
And while Graham exchanged reminiscences of
Mokpo with her, he cudgeled his brain to try and
decide whether her continual reference to her hus-
band was deliberate.
" I should imagine you found it such a paradise
here," he was saying.
" I do, I do," she assured him with what seemed
unnecessary vehemence. " But I don't know what's
come over me lately. I feel it imperative to be up
and away. The spring fret, I suppose; the Red
Gods and their medicine. And if only Dick didn't
insist on working his head off and getting tied down
with projects ! Do you know, in all the years of our
marriage, the only really serious rival I have ever
had has been this ranch. He's pretty faithful, and
the ranch is his first love. He had it all planned
and started before he ever met me or knew I ex-
isted."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 213

" Here, let us try this together," Graham said

abruptly, placing the song on the rack before her.
" Oh, but it's the ' Gypsy Trail, " she protested.
" It will only make my mood worse." And she
hummed:

"" Follow the Romany patteran

West to the sinking sun,
Till the junk sails lift through the homeless drift,
And the East and the West are one. '

" What is the Romany patteran? " she broke off

to ask. " I've always thought of it as patter, or
patois, the Gypsy patois, and somehow it strikes me
as absurd to follow a language over the world —
a sort of philological excursion."
" In a way the patteran is speech," he answered.
" But it always says one thing : ' This way I have
passed.' Two sprigs, crossed in certain ways and
left upon the trail, compose the patteran. But they
must always be of different trees or shrubs. Thus,
on the ranch here, a patteran could be made of
manzanita and madrono, of oak and spruce, of buck-
eye and alder, of redwood and laurel, of huckle-
berry and lilac. It is a sign of Gypsy comrade to
Gypsy comrade, of Gypsy lover to Gypsy lover."
And he hummed :

"" Back to the road again, again,

Out of a clear sea track;
Follow the cross of the Gypsy trail,
Over the world and back. " "

She nodded comprehension, looked for a moment

with troubled eyes down the long room to the card-
214 THE LITTLE LADY

players, caught herself in her momentary absentness,

and said quickly :
" Heaven knows there's a lot of Gypsy in some
ofus, I have more than full share. In spite of his
bucolic proclivities, Dick is a born Gypsy. And
from what he has told of you, you are hopelessly
one."
" After all, the white man is the real Gypsy, the
king Gypsy, " Graham propounded. " He has
wandered wider, wilder, and with less equipment,
than any Gypsy. The Gypsy has followed in his
trails, but never made trail for him.- Come; let us
try it."
And as they sang the reckless words to their
merry, careless lilt, he looked down at her and won-
dered-wondered at her — at himself. This was
no place for him by this woman's side, under her hus-
band's roof-tree. Yet here he was, and he should
have gone days before. After the years he was
just getting acquainted with himself. This was en-
chantment, madness. He should tear himself away
at once. He had known enchantments and mad-
nesses before, and had torn himself away. Had he
softened with the years ? he questioned himself. Or
was this a profounder madness than he had expe-
rienced? This meant the violation of dear things
—things so dear, so jealously cherished and guarded
in his secret life, that never yet had they suffered vio-
lation.
And still he did not tear himself away. He stood
there beside her, looking down on her brown crown
of hair glinting gold and bronze and bewitchingly
curling into tendrils above her ears, singing a song
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 215

that was fire to him — that must be fire to her, she

being what she was and feeling what she had al-
ready, in flashes, half-unwittingly, hinted to him.
She is a witch, and her voice is not the least of her
witchery, he thought, as her voice, so richly a
woman's voice, so essentially her voice in contra-
distinction to all women's voices in the world, sang
and throbbed in his ear. And he knew, beyond
shade of doubt, that she felt some touch of this
madness that afflicted him; that she sensed, as he
sensed, that the man and the woman were met.
They thrilled together as they sang, and the
thought and the sure knowledge of it added fuel to
his own madness till his voice warmed unconsciously
to the daring of the last lines, as, voices and thrills
blending, they sang :
"" The wild hawk to the wind-swept sky,
The deer to the wholesome wold,
And the heart of a man to the heart of a maid
As it was in the days of old —
The heart of a man to the heart of a maid,
Light of my tents be fleet,
Morning waits at the end of the world,
And the world is all at our feet.' "

He looked for her to look up as the last notes died

away, but she remained quiet a moment, her eyes
bent on the keys. And then the face that was turned
to his was the face of the Little Lady of the Big
House, the mouth smiling mischievously, the eyes
filled with roguery, as she said :
" Let us go and devil Dick—he's losing. I've
never seen him lose his temper at cards, but he gets
ridiculously blue after a long siege of losing.
216 THE LITTLE LADY

" And he does love gambling," she continued, as

she led the way to the tables. " It's one of his modes
of relaxing. It does him good. About once or
twice a year, if it's a good poker game, he'll sit in
all night to it and play to the blue sky if they take
off the limit."
 CHAPTER XVIII

LMOST immediately after the singing of the

،،

A Gypsy Trail, " Paula emerged from her se-

clusion, and Graham found himself hard put,
in the tower room, to keep resolutely to his work
when all the morning he could hear snatches of song
and opera from her wing, or laughter and scolding
of dogs from the great patio, or the continuous pulse
for hours of the piano from the distant music room.
4
But Graham, patterning after Dick, devoted his
mornings to work, so that he rarely encountered
Paula before lunch.
She made announcement that her spell of insomnia
was over and that she was ripe for all gaieties and
excursions Dick had to offer her. Further, she
threatened, in case Dick grudged these personal
diversions, to fill the house with guests and teach
him what liveliness was. It was at this time that her
Aunt Martha -

Mrs. Tully — returned for a sev-

eral days' visit, and that Paula resumed the driving
of Duddy and Fuddy in the high, one-seated Stude-
baker trap. Duddy and Fuddy were spirited trot-
ters, but Mrs. Tully, despite her elderliness and
avoirdupois, was without timidity when Paula held
the reins.
As Mrs. Tully told Graham: "And that is a con-
cession I make to no woman save Paula. She is the
only woman I can trust myself to with horses. She
has the horse-way about her.
217
When she was a child
218 THE LITTLE LADY

she was wild over horses. It's a wonder she didn't

become a circus rider."
More, much more, Graham learned about Paula
in various chats with her aunt. Of Philip Desten,
Paula's father, Mrs. Tully could never say enough.
Her eldest brother, and older by many years, he had
been her childhood prince. His ways had been big
ways, princely ways — ways that to commoner folk
had betokened a streak of madness. He was con-
tinually guilty of the wildest things and the most
chivalrous things. It was this streak that had
enabled him to win various fortunes, and with equal
facility to lose them, in the great gold adventure
of Forty-nine. Himself of old New England stock,
he had had for great grandfather a Frenchman —
a trifle of flotsam from a mid-ocean wreck and landed
to grow up among the farmer-sailormen of the coast
ofMaine.
" And once, and once only, in each generation,
that French Desten crops out," Mrs. Tully assured
66
Graham. Philip was that Frenchman in his gen-
eration, and who but Paula, and in full measure, re-
ceived that same inheritance in her generation.
Though Lute and Ernestine are her half-sisters, no
one would imagine one drop of the common blood
was shared. That's why Paula, instead of going
circus-riding, drifted inevitably to France. It was
that old original Desten that drew her over."
And of the adventure in France, Graham learned
much. Philip Desten's luck had been to die when
the wheel of his fortune had turned over and down.
Ernestine and Lute, little tots, had been easy enough
for Desten's sisters to manage. But Paula, who had
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 219

fallen to Mrs. Tully, had been the problem — " be

cause of that Frenchman. "
" Oh, she is rigid New England," Mrs. Tully in-
sisted, " the solidest of creatures as to honor and
rectitude, dependableness and faithfulness. As a
girl she really couldn't bring herself to lie, except to
save others. In which case all her New England
anpestry took flight and she would lie as magnificently
as her father before her. And he had the same
charm of manner, the same daring, the same ready
laughter, the same vivacity. But what is lightsome
and blithe in her, was debonaire in him. He won
men's hearts always, or, failing that, their bitterest
enmity. No one was left cold by him in passing.
Contact with him quickened them to love or hate.
Therein Paula differs, being a woman, I suppose,
and not enjoying man's prerogative of tilting at
windmills. I don't know that she has an enemy in
the world. All love her, unless, it may well be, there
are cat-women who envy her her nice husband."
And as Graham listened, Paula's singing came
through the open window from somewhere down the
long arcades, and there was that ever-haunting
thrill in her voice that he could not escape remem-
bering afterward. She burst into laughter, and
Mrs. Tully beamed to him and nodded at the sound.
" There laughs Philip Desten," she murmured,
" and all the Frenchwomen behind the original
Frenchman who was brought into Penobscot, dressed
in homespun, and sent to meeting. Have you no-
ticed how Paula's laugh invariably makes everybody
look up and. smile ? Philip's laugh did the same
thing."
220 THE LITTLE LADY

" Paula had always been passionately fond of mu-

sic, painting, drawing. As a little girl she could be
traced around the house and grounds by the trail
she left behind her of images and shapes, made in
whatever medium she chanced upon —drawn on
scraps of paper, scratched on bits of wood, modeled
in mud and sand.
" She loved everything, and everything loved
her, " said Mrs. Tully. " She was never timid of
animals. And yet she always stood in awe of them;
but she was born sense-struck, and her awe was
beauty-awe. Yes, she was an incorrigible hero-wor-
shiper, whether the person was merely beautiful or
did things. And she never will outgrow that beauty-
awe of anything she loves, whether it is a grand
piano, a great painting, a beautiful mare, or a bit
of landscape.
" And Paula had wanted to do, to make beauty
herself. But she was sorely puzzled whether she
should devote herself to music or painting. In the
full swing of work under the best masters in Boston,
she could not refrain from straying back to her
drawing. From her easel she was lured to model-
ing.
"And so, with her love of the best, her soul and
heart full of beauty, she grew quite puzzled and
worried over herself, as to which talent was the
greater and if she had genius at all. I suggested a
complete rest from work and took her abroad for a
year. And of all things, she developed a talent for
dancing. But always she harked back to her music
and painting. No, she was not flighty. Her
trouble was that she was too talented -"
L
OF THE BIG HOUSE 221

" Too diversely talented," Graham amplified.

" Yes, that is better," Mrs. Tully nodded. " But
from talent to genius is a far cry, and to save my
life, at this late day, I don't know whether the child
ever had a trace of genius in her. She has certainly
not done anything big in any of her chosen things."
" Except to be herself," Graham added.
" Which is the big thing," Mrs. Tully accepted
with a smile of enthusiasm . " She is a splendid,
unusual woman, very unspoiled, very natural. And
after all, what does doing things amount to ? I'd
give more for one of Paula's madcap escapades — -

oh, I heard all about swimming the big stallion

than for all her pictures if every one was a master-
piece. But she was hard for me to understand at
first. Dick often calls her the girl that never grew
up. But gracious, she can put on the grand air
when she needs to. I call her the most mature child
I have ever seen. Dick was the finest thing that
ever happened to her. It was then that she really
seemed for the first time to find herself. It was this
way."
And Mrs. Tully went on to sketch the year of
travel in Europe, the resumption of Paula's paint-
ing in Paris, and the conviction she finally reached
that success could be achieved only by struggle and
that her aunt's money was a handicap.
" And she had her way," Mrs. Tully sighed.
" She—why, she dismissed me, sent me home. She
would accept no more than the meagerest allowance,
and went down into the Latin Quarter on her own,
batching with two other American girls. And she
met Dick. Dick was a rare one. You couldn't
222 THE LITTLE LADY

guess what he was doing then. Running a cabaret

— oh, not these modern cabarets, but a real students'
cabaret of sorts. It was very select. They were
a lot of madmen. You see, he was just back from
some of his wild adventuring at the ends of the earth,
and, as he stated it, he wanted to stop living life for
a while and to talk about life instead.
" Paula took me there once. Oh, they were en-
gaged -

the day before, and he had called on me

and all that. I had known ' Lucky ' Richard For-
rest, and I knew all about his son. From a worldly
standpoint, Paula couldn't have made a finer mar-
riage. It was quite a romance. Paula had seen him
captain the University of California eleven to vic-
tory over Stanford. And the next time she saw him
was in the studio she shared with the two girls.
She didn't know whether Dick was worth millions
or whether he was running a cabaret because he was
hard up, and she cared less. She always followed
her heart. Fancy the situation : Dick the uncatch-
able, and Paula who never flirted. They must have
sprung forthright into each other's arms, for inside
the week it was all arranged, and Dick made his call
on me, as if my decision meant anything one way or
the other.
" But Dick's cabaret. It was the Cabaret of the
Philosophers — a small pokey place, down in a cel-
lar, in the heart of the Quarter, and it had only one
table. Fancy that for a cabaret ! But such a table !
A big round one, of plain boards, without even an
oil-cloth, the wood stained with the countless drinks
spilled by the table-pounding of the philosophers, and
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 223

it could seat thirty. Women were not permitted.

An exception was made for Paula and me.
" You've met Aaron Hancock here. He was one
of the philosophers, and to this day he swaggers that
he owed Dick a bigger bill that never was paid than
any of his customers. And there they used to meet,
all those wild young thinkers, and pound the table,
and talk philosophy in all the tongues of Europe.
Dick always had a penchant for philosophers.
" But Paula spoiled that little adventure. No
sooner were they married than Dick fitted out his
schooner, the All Away, and away the blessed pair
of them went, honeymooning from Bordeaux to
Hongkong."
" And the cabaret was closed, and the philosophers
left homeless and discussionless," Graham remarked.
Mrs. Tully laughed heartily and shook her head.
" He endowed it for them," she gasped, her hand
to her side. " Or partially endowed it, or some-
thing. I don't know what the arrangement was.
And within the month it was raided by the police for
an anarchist club."

After having learned the wide scope of her in-

terests and talents, Graham was nevertheless sur-
prised one day at finding Paula all by herself in a
corner of a window-seat, completely absorbed in her
work on a piece of fine embroidery.
" I love it," she explained. " All the costly nee-
dlework of the shops means nothing to me alongside
of my own work on my own designs. Dick used to
fret at my sewing. He's all for efficiency, you know,
224 THE LITTLE LADY

elimination of waste energy and such things. He

thought sewing was a wasting of time. Peasants
could be hired for a song to do what I was doing.
But I succeeded in making my viewpoint clear to
him.
" It's like the music one makes oneself. Of
course I can buy better music than I make ; but to sit
down at an instrument and evoke the music oneself,
with one's own fingers and brain, is an entirely dif-
ferent and dearer satisfaction. Whether one tries
to emulate another's performance, or infuses the per-
formance with one's own personality and interpreta-
tion, it's all the same. It is soul-joy and fulfilment.
" Take this little embroidered crust of lilies on the
edge of this flounce—there is nothing like it in the
world. Mine the idea, all mine, and mine the de-
light of giving form and being to the idea. There
are better ideas and better workmanship in the shops ;
but this is different. It is mine. I visioned it, and
I made it. And who is to say that embroidery is
not art ? "
She ceased speaking and with her eyes laughed
the insistence of her question.
" And who is to say," Graham agreed, " that the
adorning of beautiful womankind is not the worthiest
of all the arts as well as the sweetest ? "
" I rather stand in awe of a good milliner or
modiste," she nodded gravely. " They really are
artists, and important ones, as Dick would phrase it,
in the world's economy."

Another time, seeking the library for Andean

reference, Graham came upon Paula, sprawled
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 225

gracefully over a sheet of paper on a big table and

flanked by ponderous architectural portfolios, en-
gaged in drawing plans of a log bungalow or camp
for the sages of the madrono grove.
" It's a problem," she sighed. " Dick says that if
I build it I must build it for seven. We've got four
sages now, and his heart is set on seven. He says
never mind showers and such things, because what
philosopher ever bathes ? And he has suggested
seriously seven stoves and seven kitchens, because it
is just over such mundane things that philosophers
always quarrel."
" Wasn't it Voltaire who quarreled with a king
over candle-ends ? " Graham queried, pleasuring in
the sight of her graceful abandon. Thirty-eight !
It was impossible. She seemed almost a girl, petu-
lant and flushed over some school task. Then he
remembered Mrs. Tully's remark that Paula was the
most mature child she had ever known.
It made him wonder. Was she the one, who, un-
der the oaks at the hitching rails, with two brief sen-
tences had cut to the heart of an impending situa-
tion ? " So I apprehend," she had said. What had
she apprehended? Had she used the phrase glibly,
without meaning ? Yet she it was who had thrilled
and fluttered to him and with him when they had
sung the " Gypsy Trail." That he knew. But
again, had he not seen her warm and glow to the
playing of Donald Ware ? But here Graham's ego
had its will of him, for he told himself that with
Donald Ware it was different. And he smiled to
himself and at himself at the thought.
" What amuses you ? " Paula was asking.
 226 THE LITTLE LADY

" Heaven knows I am no architect. And I challenge

you to house seven philosophers according to all the
absurd stipulations laid down by Dick."
Back in his tower room with his Andean books
unopened before him, Graham gnawed his lip and
meditated. The woman was no woman. She was
the veriest child. Or — and he hesitated at the
thought — was this naturalness that was overdone ?
Did she in truth apprehend? It must be. It had
to be. She was of the world. She knew the world.
She was very wise. No remembered look of her
gray eyes but gave the impression of poise and
power. That was it— strength ! He recalled her
that first night when she had seemed at times to glint
an impression of steel, of thin and jewel-like steel.
In his fancy, at the time, he remembered likening her
strength to ivory, to carven pearl shell, to sennit
twisted of maidens' hair.
And he knew, now, ever since the brief words at
the hitching rails and the singing of the " Gypsy
Trail," that whenever their eyes looked into each
other's it was with a mutual knowledge of unsaid
things.
In vain he turned the pages of the books for the
information he sought. He tried to continue his
chapter without the information, but no words
flowed from his pen. A maddening restlessness was
upon him. He seized a time table and pondered the
departure of trains, changed his mind, switched the
room telephone to the house barn, and asked to
have Altadena saddled.
It was a perfect morning of California early sum-
mer. No breath of wind stirred over the drowsing
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 227

fields, from which arose the calls of quail and the

notes of meadowlarks . The air was heavy with
lilac fragrance, and from the distance, as he rode
between the lilac hedges, Graham heard the throaty
>
nicker of Mountain Lad and the silvery answering
whinney of the Fotherington Princess.
Why was he here astride Dick Forrest's horse ?
Graham asked himself. Why was he not even then
on the way to the station to catch that first train he
had noted on the time table ? This unaccustomed
weakness of decision and action was a new role for
him, he considered bitterly. But and he was on
-

fire with the thought of it — this was his one life, and
this was the one woman in the world.
He reined aside to let a herd of Angora goats go
by. Each was a doe, and there were several hun-
dred of them; and they were moved slowly by the
Basque herdsmen, with frequent pauses, for each doe
was accompanied by a young kid. In the paddock
were many mares with new-born colts ; and once, re-
ceiving warning in time, Graham raced into a cross-
road to escape a drove of thirty yearling stallions
being moved somewhere across the ranch. Their
excitement was communicated to that entire portion
of the ranch, so that the air was filled with shrill
nickerings and squealings and answering whinneys,
while Mountain Lad, beside himself at sight and
sound of so many rivals, raged up and down his
paddock, and again and again trumpeted his chal-
lenging conviction that he was the most amazing
and mightiest thing that had ever occurred on earth
in the way of horse flesh.
Dick Forrest pranced and sidled into the cross
228 THE LITTLE LADY

road on the Outlaw, his face beaming with delight

at the little tempest among his many creatures.
" Fecundity ! Fecundity ! " — he chanted in
greeting, as he reined in to a halt, if halt it might be
called, with his tan-golden sorrel mare a-fret and
a-froth, wickedly reaching with her teeth now for
his leg and next for Graham's, one moment pawing
the roadway, the next moment, in sheer impotence
of resentfulness, kicking the empty air with one hind
leg and kicking the air repeatedly, a dozen times.
" Those youngsters certainly put Mountain Lad
on his mettle, " Dick laughed. " Listen to his song :
" " Hear me ! I am Eros. I stamp upon the
hills. I fill the wide valleys. The mares hear me,
and startle, in quiet pastures; for they know me.
The land is filled with fatness, and the sap is in the
trees. It is the spring. The spring is mine. I am
monarch of my kingdom of the spring. The mares
remember my voice. They knew me aforetime
through their mothers before them. Hear me ! I
am Eros. I stamp upon the hills, and the wide val-
leys are my heralds, echoing the sound of my ap-
proach. ' "
 2

CHAPTER XIX

FTER Mrs. Tully's departure, Paula, true to

A her threat, filled the house with guests.
seemed to have remembered all who had been
She

waiting an invitation, and the limousine that met

the trains eight miles away was rarely empty com-
ing or going. There were more singers and mu-
sicians and artist folk, and bevies of young girls with
their inevitable followings of young men, while
mammas and aunts and chaperons seemed to clutter
all the ways of the Big House and to fill a couple
of motor cars when picnics took place.
And Graham wondered if this surrounding of her-
self by many people was not deliberate on Paula's
part. As for himself, he definitely abandoned work
on his book, and joined in the before-breakfast swims
of the hardier younger folk, in the morning rides
over the ranch, and in whatever fun was afoot in-
doors and out.
Late hours and early were kept; and one night,
Dick, who adhered to his routine and never appeared
to his guests before midday, made a night of it at
poker in the stag-room. Graham had sat in, and
felt well repaid when, at dawn, the players received
an unexpected visit from Paula -

herself past one

of her white nights, she said, although no sign of it
showed on her fresh skin and color. Graham had
229
230 THE LITTLE LADY

to struggle to keep his eyes from straying too fre-

quently to her as she mixed golden fizzes to rejuven-
ate the wan-eyed, jaded players. Then she made
them start the round of " jacks " that closed the
game, and sent them off for a cold swim before
breakfast and the day's work or frolic.
Never was Paula alone. Graham could only join
in the groups that were always about her. Although
the young people ragged and tangoed incessantly,
she rarely danced, and then it was with the young
men. Once, however, she favored him with an old-
fashioned waltz. " Your ancestors in an antedilu-
vian dance," she mocked the young people, as she
stepped out; for she and Graham had the floor to
themselves.
Once down the length of the room, the two were
in full accord. Paula, with the sympathy Graham
recognized that made her the exceptional accom-
panist or rider, subdued herself to the masterful art
of the man, until the two were as parts of a sentient
machine that operated without jar or friction.
After several minutes, finding their perfect mutual
step and pace, and Graham feeling the absolute giv-
ing of Paula to the dance, they essayed rhythmical
pauses and dips, their feet never leaving the floor,
yet affecting the onlookers in the way Dick voiced
it when he cried out: " They float ! They float ! "
The music was the " Waltz of Salome," and with
its slow-fading end they postured slower and slower
to a perfect close.
There was no need to speak. In silence, without
a glance at each other, they returned to the company
where Dick was proclaiming :
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 231

" Well, younglings, codlings, and other fry, that's

the way we old folks used to dance. I'm not saying
anything against the new dances, mind you.
They're all right and dandy fine. But just the same
it wouldn't injure you much to learn to waltz prop-
erly. The way you waltz, when you do attempt it,
is a scream. We old folks do know a thing or two
that is worth while ."
" For instance ? " queried one of the girls.
" I'll tell you. I don't mind the young genera-
tion smelling of gasoline the way it does—"
Cries and protests drowned Dick out for a mo-
ment.

" I know I smell of it myself," he went on. " But

you've all failed to learn the good old modes of loco-
motion. There isn't a girl of you that Paula can't
walk into the ground. There isn't a fellow of you
that Graham and I can't walk into a receiving hos-
pital. Oh, I know you can all crank engines and
shift gears to the queen's taste. But there isn't one
of you that can properly ride a horse -

a real horse,
in the only way, I mean. As for driving a smart
pair of roadsters, it's a screech. And how many of
you husky lads, hell-scooting on the bay in your
speed-boats, can take the wheel of an old-time sloop
or schooner, without an auxiliary, and get out of
your own way in her ? "
" But we get there just the same," the same girl
retorted.
" And I don't deny it," Dick answered. " But
you are not always pretty. I'll tell you a pretty
sight that no one of you can ever present— Paula,
there, with the reins of four slashing horses in her
232 THE LITTLE LADY

hands, her foot on the brake, swinging tally-ho along

a mountain road."

On a warm morning, in the cool arcade of the

great patio, a chance group of four or five, among
whom was Paula, formed about Graham, who had
been reading alone. After a time he returned to
his magazine with such absorption that he forgot
those about him until an awareness of silence pene-
trated to his consciousness. He looked up. All the
others save Paula had strayed off. He could hear
their distant laughter from across the patio. But
Paula ! He surprised the look on her face, in her
eyes. It was a look bent on him, concerning him.
Doubt, speculation, almost fear, were in her eyes ;
and yet, in that swift instant, he had time to note that
it was a look deep and searching — almost, his quick
fancy prompted, the look of one peering into the
just-opened book of fate. Her eyes fluttered and
fell, and the color increased in her cheeks in an un-
mistakable blush. Twice her lips moved to the
verge of speech ; yet, caught so arrantly in the act, she
was unable to phrase any passing thought. Graham
saved the painful situation by saying casually :
" Do you know, I've just been reading De Vries'
eulogy of Luther Burbank's work, and it seems to
me that Dick is to the domestic animal world what
Burbank is to the domestic vegetable world. You
are life-makers here -thumbing the stuff into new
forms of utility and beauty."
Paula, by this time herself again, laughed and ac-
cepted the compliment.
" I fear me," Graham continued with easy serious-
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 233

ness, as I watch your achievements, that I can only

look back on a misspent life. Why didn't I get in
and make things ? I'm horribly envious of both of
you."
" We are responsible for a dreadful lot of crea-
tures being born," she said. " It makes one breath-
less to think of the responsibility."
" The ranch certainly spells fecundity," Graham
smiled. " I never before was so impressed with the
flowering and fruiting of life. Everything here
prospers and multiplies —"
" Oh ! " Paula cried, breaking in with a sudden
thought. " Some day I'll show you my goldfish . I
breed them, too — yea, and commercially. I supply
the San Francisco dealers with their rarest strains,
and I even ship to New York. And, best of all, I
actually make money — profits, I mean. Dick's
books show it, and he is the most rigid of bookkeep-
ers. There isn't a tack-hammer on the place that
isn't inventoried ; nor a horse-shoe nail unaccounted
for. That's why he has such a staff of bookkeepers.
Why, do you know, calculating every last least item
of expense, including average loss of time for colic
and lameness, out of fearfully endless columns of
figures he has worked the cost of an hour's labor for
a draught horse to the third decimal place."
" But your goldfish," Graham suggested, irritated
byher constant dwelling on her husband.
" Well, Dick makes his bookkeepers keep track of
my goldfish in the same way. I'm charged every
hour of any of the ranch or house labor I use on the
fish-

postage stamps and stationery, too, if you

please. I have to pay interest on the plant. He
234 THE LITTLE LADY

even charges me for the water, just as if he were a

city water company and I a householder. And still
I net ten per cent., and have netted as high as thirty.
But Dick laughs and says when I've deducted the
wages of superintendence — my superintendence, he
means — that I'll find I am poorly paid or else am
operating at a loss; that with my net I couldn't hire
so capable a superintendent.
" Just the same, that's why Dick succeeds in his
undertakings. Unless it's sheer experiment, he
never does anything without knowing precisely, to
the last microscopic detail, what it is he is doing."
" He is very sure," Graham observed.
" I never knew a man to be so sure of himself,"
Paula replied warmly;; " and I never knew a man
with half the warrant. I know him. He is a
genius — but only in the most paradoxical sense.
He is a genius because he is so balanced and normal
that he hasn't the slightest particle of genius in him.
Such men are rarer and greater than geniuses. I
like to think of Abraham Lincoln as such a type."
" I must admit I don't quite get you," Graham
said.
" Oh, I don't dare to say that Dick is as good,
as cosmically good, as Lincoln," she hurried on.
" Dick is good, but it is not that. It is in their ex-
cessive balance, normality, lack of flare, that they are
of the same type. Now I am a genius. For, see, I
do things without knowing how I do them. I just
do them. I get effects in my music that way. Take
my diving. To save my life I couldn't tell how I
swan-dive, or jump, or do the turn and a half.
" Dick, on the other hand, can't do anything un
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 235

less he clearly knows in advance how he is going

to do it. He does everything with balance and fore-
sight. He's a general, all-around wonder, without
ever having been a particular wonder at any one
thing.— Oh, I know him. He's never been a cham-
pion or a record-breaker in any line of athletics.
Nor has he been mediocre in any line. And so with
everything else, mentally, intellectually. He is an
evenly forged chain. He has no massive links, no
weak links ."
" I'm afraid I'm like you," Graham said, " that
commoner and lesser creature, a genius. For I, too,
on occasion, flare and do the most unintentional
things. And I am not above falling on my knees
before mystery."
" And Dick hates mystery —or it would seem he
does. Not content with knowing how —he is
eternally seeking the why of the how. Mystery is a
challenge to him. It excites him like a red rag does
a bull. At once he is for ripping the husks and
the heart from mystery, so that he will know the
how and the why, when it will be no longer mystery
but a generalization and a scientifically demonstrable
fact."

Much of the growing situation was veiled to the

three figures of it. Graham did not know of Paula's
desperate efforts to cling close to her husband, who,
himself desperately busy with his thousand plans
and projects, was seeing less and less of his com-
pany. He always appeared at lunch, but it was a
rare afternoon when he could go out with his guests.
Paula did know, from the multiplicity of long, code
236 THE LITTLE LADY

telegrams from Mexico, that things were in a parlous

state with the Harvest Group. Also, she saw the
agents and emissaries of foreign investors in Mexico,
always in haste and often inopportune, arriving at
the ranch to confer with Dick. Beyond his com-
plaint that they ate the heart out of his time, he gave
her no clew to the matters discussed.
" My ! I wish you weren't so busy," she sighed
in his arms, on his knees, one fortunate morning,
when, at eleven o'clock, she had caught him alone.
It was true, she had interrupted the dictation of
a letter into the phonograph; and the sigh had been
evoked by the warning cough of Bonbright, whom
she saw entering with more telegrams in his hand.
" Won't you let me drive you this afternoon, be-
hind Duddy and Fuddy, just you and me, and cut the
crowd ? " she begged.
He shook his head and smiled.
" You'll meet at lunch a weird combination," he
explained. " Nobody else needs to know, but I'll
tell you." He lowered his voice, while Bonbright
discreetly occupied himself at the filing cabinets.
" They're Tampico oil folk. Samuels himself,
President of the Nacisco; and Wishaar, the big in-
side man of the Pearson-Brooks crowd -

the chap
that engineered the purchase of the East Coast rail-
road and the Tiuana Central when they tried to put
the Nacisco out of business; and Matthewson — he's
the hi-yu-skookum big chief this side the Atlantic of
the Palmerston interests — you know, the English
crowd that fought the Nacisco and the Pearson-
Brooks bunch so hard; and, oh, there'll be several
others. It shows you that things are rickety down
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 237

Mexico way when such a bunch stops scrapping and

gets together.
" You see, they are oil, and I'm important in my
way down there, and they want me to swing the
mining interests in with the oil. Truly, big things
are in the air, and we've got to hang together and
do something or get out of Mexico. And I'll admit,
after they gave me the turn-down in the trouble three
years ago, that I've sulked in my tent and made them
come to see me ."
He caressed her and called her his armful of dear-
est woman, although she detected his eye roving im-
patiently to the phonograph with its unfinished let-
ter.

" And so," he concluded, with a pressure of his

arms about her that seemed to hint that her moment
with him was over and she must go, " that means the
afternoon. None will stop over. And they'll be
off and away before dinner."
She slipped off his knees and out of his arms with
unusual abruptness, and stood straight up before
him, her eyes flashing, her cheeks white, her face set
with determination, as if about to say something of
grave importance. But a bell tinkled softly, and he
reached for the desk telephone.
Paula drooped, and sighed inaudibly, and, as she
went down the room and out the door, and as Bon-
bright stepped eagerly forward with the telegrams ,
she could hear the beginning of her husband's con-
versation:
" No. It is impossible. He's got to come
through, or I'll put him out of business. That gen-
tleman's agreement is all poppycock. If it were
 238 THE LITTLE LADY

only that, of course he could break it. But I've got

some mighty interesting correspondence that he's
forgotten about. ...
Yes, yes; it will clinch it in
any court of law. I'll have the file in your office
by five this afternoon. And tell him, for me, that if
he tries to put through this trick, I'll break him.
I'll put a competing line on, and his steamboats will
be in the receiver's hands inside a year. .
And
..

hello, are you there ? And just look up

that point I suggested. I am rather convinced you'll
find the Interstate Commerce has got him on two
counts " ..

Nor did Graham, nor even Paula, imagine that

Dick— the keen one, the deep one, who could see
and sense things yet to occur and out of intangible
nuances and glimmerings build shrewd speculations
and hypotheses that subsequent events often proved
correct — was already sensing what had not hap-
pened but what might happen. He had not heard
Paula's brief significant words at the hitching post;
nor had he seen Graham catch her in that deep scrut-
iny of him under the arcade. Dick had heard
nothing, seen little, but sensed much; and, even in
advance of Paula, had he apprehended in vague ways
what she afterward had come to apprehend.
The most tangible thing he had to build on was
the night, immersed in bridge, when he had not been
unaware of the abrupt leaving of the piano after
the singing of the " Gypsy Trail " ; nor when, in care-
less smiling greeting of them when they came down
the room to devil him over his losing, had he failed
: to receive a hint or feeling of something unusual in
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 239

Paula's roguish teasing face. On the moment,

laughing retorts, giving as good as she sent, Dick's
own laughing eyes had swept over Graham beside
her and likewise detected the unusual. The man
was overstrung, had been Dick's mental note at the
time. But why should he be overstrung ? Was
there any connection between his overstrungness and
the sudden desertion by Paula of the piano ? And
all the while these questions were slipping through
his thoughts, he had laughed at their sallies, dealt,
sorted his hand, and won the bid on no trumps.
Yet to himself he had continued to discount as
absurd and preposterous the possibility of his vague
apprehension ever being realized. It was a chance
guess, a silly speculation, based upon the most trivial
data, he sagely concluded. It merely connoted the
attractiveness of his wife and of his friend. But
-

and on occasional moments he could not will the

thought from coming uppermost in his mind why -

had they broken off from singing that evening ?

Why had he received the feeling that there was
something unusual about it ? Why had Graham
been overstrung ?

Nor did Bonbright, one morning, taking dicta-

tion of a telegram in the last hour before noon,
know that Dick's casual sauntering to the window,
still dictating, had been caused by the faint sound
of hoofs on the driveway. It was not the first of
recent mornings that Dick had so sauntered to the
window, to glance out with apparent absentness at
the rush of the morning riding party in the last dash
home to the hitching rails. But he knew, on this
240 THE LITTLE LADY

morning, before the first figures came in sight whose

those figures would be.
" Braxton is safe," he went on with the dictation
without change of tone, his eyes on the road where
the riders must first come into view. " If things
break he can get out across the mountains into Ari-
zona. See Connors immediately. Braxton left
Connors complete instructions. Connors to-morrow
in Washington. Give me fullest details any move
— signed."
Up the driveway the Fawn and Altadena clattered
neck and neck. Dick had not been disappointed in
the figures he expected to see. From the rear, cries
and laughter and the sound of many hoofs tokened
that the rest of the party was close behind.
" And the next one, Mr. Bonbright, please put
in the Harvest code," Dick went on steadily, while
to himself he was commenting that Graham was a
passable rider but not an excellent one, and that it
would have to be seen to that he was given a heavier
horse than Altadena. " It is to Jeremy Braxton.
Send it both ways. There is a chance one or the
other may get through .."
. .
 CHAPTER XX

NCE again the tide of guests ebbed from the

0 dinner found only the two men and Paula
Big House, and more than one lunch and

at the table. On such evenings, while Graham and

Dick yarned for their hour before bed, Paula no
longer played soft things to herself at the piano, but
sat with them doing fine embroidery and listening
to the talk.
Both men had much in common, had lived life in
somewhat similar ways, and regarded life from the
same angles. Their philosophy was harsh rather
than sentimental, and both were realists. Paula
made a practice of calling them the pair of " Brass
Tacks ."
" Oh, yes," she laughed to them, " I understand
your attitude. You are successes, the pair of you
— physical successes, I mean. You have health.
You are resistant. You can stand things. You
have survived where men less resistant have gone
down. You pull through African fevers and bury
the other fellows. This poor chap gets pneumonia
in Cripple Creek and cashes in before you can get
him to sea level. Now why didn't you get pneu-
monia ? Because you were more deserving ? Be-
cause you had lived more virtuously ? Because you
were more careful of risks and took more precau-
tions ? "
241
242 THE LITTLE LADY

She shook her head.

" No. Because you were luckier — I mean by
birth, by possession of constitution and stamina.
Why, Dick buried his three mates and two engineers
at Guayaquil. Yellow fever. Why didn't the yel-
low fever germ, or whatever it is, kill Dick ? And
the same with you, Mr. Broad-shouldered Deep-
chested Graham. In this last trip of yours, why
didn't you die in the swamps instead of your photog-
rapher ? Come. Confess. How heavy was he ?
How broad were his shoulders ? How deep his
chest? wide his nostrils ?— tough his resistance ? "
-

" He weighed a hundred and thirty-five," Graham

admitted ruefully. " But he looked all right and fit
at the start. I think I was more surprised than he
when he turned up his toes." Graham shook his
head. " It wasn't because he was a light weight
and small. The small men are usually the tough-
est, other things being equal. But you've put your
finger on the reason just the same. He didn't have
the physical stamina, the resistance.- You know
what I mean, Dick ? "
" In a way it's like the quality of muscle and heart
that enables some prizefighters to go the distance —
twenty, thirty, forty rounds, say," Dick concurred.
" Right now, in San Francisco, there are several hun-
dred youngsters dreaming of success in the ring.
I've watched them trying out. All look good, fine-
bodied, healthy, fit as fiddles, and young. And their
spirits are most willing. And not one in ten of them
can last ten rounds. I don't mean they get knocked
out. I mean they blow up. Their muscles and
their hearts are not made out of first-grade fiber.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 243

They simply are not made to move at high speed and

tension for ten rounds. And some of them blow
up in four or five rounds. And not one in forty can
go the twenty-round route, give and take, hammer
and tongs, one minute of rest to three of fight, for a
full hour of fighting. And the lad who can last forty
rounds is one in ten thousand — lads like Nelson,
Cans, and Wolgast.
" You understand the point I am making," Paula
took up. " Here are the pair of you. Neither will
see forty again. You're a pair of hard-bitten sin-
ners. You've gone through hardship and exposure
that dropped others all along the way. You've had
your fun and folly. You've roughed and rowdied
over the world —"
66

Played the wild ass," Graham laughed in.

" And drunk deep," Paula added. " Why, even
alcohol hasn't burned you. You were too tough.
You put the other fellows under the table, or into
the hospital or the grave, and went your gorgeous
way, a song on your lips, with tissues uncorroded,
and without even the morning-after headache. And
the point is that you are successes. Your muscles
are blond-beast muscles, your vital organs are blond-
beast organs. And from all this emanates your
blond-beast philosophy. That's why you are brass :
tacks, and preach realism, and practice realism,
shouldering and shoving and walking over lesser and
unluckier creatures, who don't dare talk back, who,
like Dick's prizefighting boys, would blow up in the
first round if they resorted to the arbitrament of
force."
Dick whistled a long note of mock dismay.
244 THE LITTLE LADY

"And that's why you preach the gospel of the

strong," Paula went on. " If you had been weak-
lings, you'd have preached the gospel of the weak
and turned the other cheek. But you you pair of
-

big-muscled giants — when you are struck, being

what you are, you don't turn the other cheek-"
" No," Dick interrupted quietly. " We imme-
diately roar, ' Knock his block off! ' and then do
it.— She's got us, Evan, hip and thigh. Philosophy,
like religion, is what the man is, and is by him made
in his own image."
And while the talk led over the world, Paula
sewed on, her eyes filled with the picture of the two
big men, admiring, wondering, pondering, without
the surety of self that was theirs, aware of a slipping
and giving of convictions so long accepted that they
had seemed part of her.
Later in the evening she gave voice to her trouble.
" The strangest part of it," she said, taking up a
remark Dick had just made, " is that too much
philosophizing about life gets one worse than no-
where. A philosophic atmosphere is confusing —
at least to a woman. One hears so much about
everything, and against everything, that nothing is
sure. For instance, Mendenhall's wife is a Lu-
theran. She hasn't a doubt about anything. All is
fixed, ordained, immovable. Star-drifts and ice-ages
she knows nothing about, and if she did they would
not alter in the least her rules of conduct for men
and women in this world and in relation to the next.
" But here, with us, you two pound your brass
tacks, Terrence does a Greek dance of epicurean
anarchism, Hancock waves the glittering veils of
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 245

Bergsonian metaphysics, Leo makes solemn obeis-

ance at the altar of Beauty, and Dar Hyal juggles
his sophistic blastism to no end save all your applause
for his cleverness. Don't you see ? The effect is
that there is nothing solid in any human judgment.
Nothing is right. Nothing is wrong. One is left
compassless, rudderless, chartless on a sea of ideas.
Shall I do this ? Must I refrain from that ? Will it
be wrong ? Is there any virtue in it? Mrs. Men-
denhall has her instant answer for every such ques-
tion. But do the philosophers ? "
Paula shook her head.
" No. All they have is ideas. They immediately
proceed to talk about it, and talk and talk and talk,
and with all their erudition reach no conclusion what-
ever. And I am just as bad. I listen and listen,
and talk and talk, as I am talking now, and remain
convictionless. There is no test—"
" But there is," Dick said. " The old, eternal
test of truth -
Will it work? "
" Ah, now you are pounding your favorite brass
tack," Paula smiled. " And Dar Hyal, with a few
arm-wavings and word-whirrings, will show that all
brass tacks are illusions ; and Terrence, that brass
tacks are sordid, irrelevant and non-essential things
at best; and Hancock, that the overhanging heaven
of Bergson is paved with brass tacks, only that they
are a much superior article to yours ; and Leo, that
there is only one brass tack in the universe, and that
it is Beauty, and that it isn't brass at all but gold. "

" Come on, Red Cloud, go riding this afternoon,"

Paula asked her husband. " Get the cobwebs out
246 THE LITTLE LADY

of your brain, and let lawyers and mines and live-

stock go hang. "
" I'd like to, Paul," he answered. " But I can't.
I've got to rush in a machine all the way to the Buck-
eye. Word came in just before lunch. They're in
trouble at the dam. There must have been a fault
in the under-strata, and too-heavy dynamiting has
opened it. In short, what's the good of a good
dam when the bottom of the reservoir won't hold
water ? "
Three hours later, returning from the Buckeye,
Dick noted that for the first time Paula and Graham
had gone riding together alone.

The Wainwrights and the Coghlans, in two ma-

chines, out for a week's trip to the Russian River,
rested over for a day at the Big House, and were
the cause of Paula's taking out the tally-ho for a
picnic into the Los Banos Hills. Starting in the
morning, it was impossible for Dick to accompany
them, although he left Blake in the thick of dictation
to go out and see them off. He assured himself that
no detail was amiss in the harnessing and hitching,
and reseated the party, insisting on Graham coming
forward into the box-seat beside Paula.
،،
Just must have a reserve of man's strength
alongside of Paula in case of need," Dick explained.
" I've known a brake-rod to carry away on a down
grade somewhat to the inconvenience of the passen-
gers. Some of them broke their necks. And now,
to reassure you, with Paula at the helm, I'll sing you
a song :
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 247

" What can little Paula do ?

Why, drive a phaeton and two.
Can little Paula do no more ?
Yes, drive a tally-ho and four."

All were in laughter as Paula nodded to the

grooms to release the horses' heads, took the feel
of the four mouths oh her hands, and shortened and
slipped the reins to adjustment of four horses into
the collars and taut on the traces .
In the babel of parting gibes to Dick, none of the
guests was aware of aught else than a bright morn-
ing, the promise of a happy day, and a genial host
bidding them a merry going. But Paula, despite the
keen exhilaration that should have arisen with the
handling of four such horses, was oppressed by a
vague sadness in which, somehow, Dick's being left
behind figured. Through Graham's mind Dick's
merry face had flashed a regret of conscience that,
instead of being seated there beside this one woman,
he should be on train and steamer fleeing to the other
side of the world.
But the merriness died on Dick's face the moment
he turned on his heel to enter the house. It was a
few minutes later than ten when he finished his dic-
tation and Mr. Blake rose to go. He hesitated, then
said a trifle apologetically :
" You told me, Mr. Forrest, to remind you of
the proofs of your Shorthorn book. They wired
their second hurry-up yesterday."
" I won't be able to tackle it myself," Dick re-
plied. " Will you please correct the typographical,
submit the proofs to Mr. Manson for correction of
248 THE LITTLE LADY

fact— tell him be sure to verify that pedigree of

-

King of Devon and ship them off. "

Until eleven Dick received his managers and fore-
men. But not for a quarter of an hour after that
did he get rid of his show manager, Mr. Pitts, with
the tentative make-up of the catalogue for the first
annual stock-sale on the ranch. By that time Mr.
Bonbright was on hand with his sheaf of telegrams,
and the lunch-hour was at hand ere they were
cleaned up.
For the first time alone since he had seen the
tally-ho off, Dick stepped out on his sleeping porch
to the row of barometers and thermometers on the
wall. But he had come to consult, not them, but the
girl's face that laughed from the round wooden
frame beneath them.
" Paula, Paula," he said aloud, " are you surpris-
ing yourself and me after all these years ? Are you
turning madcap at sober middle age ? "
He put on leggings and spurs to be ready for rid-
ing after lunch, and what his thoughts had been
while buckling on the gear he epitomized to the girl
in the frame.
66
Play the game," he muttered. And then, after
a pause, as he turned to go : " A free field and no
favor •
and no favor. "

" Really, if I don't go soon, I'll have to become a

pensioner and join the philosophers of the madrono
grove," Graham said laughingly to Dick.
It was the time of cocktail assembling, and
Paula, in addition to Graham, was the only one of
the driving party as yet to put in an appearance.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 249

" If all the philosophers together would just make

one book ! " Dick demurred. " Good Lord, man,
you've just got to complete your book here. I got
you started and I've got to see you through with it."
Paula's encouragement to Graham to stay on —
mere stereotyped, uninterested phrases — was music
to Dick. His heart leapt. After all, might he not
be entirely mistaken ? For two such mature, wise,
middle-aged individuals as Paula and Graham any
such foolishness was preposterous and unthinkable.
They were not young things with their hearts on
their sleeves.
" To the book ! " he toasted. He turned to
Paula. " A good cocktail," he praised. " Paul,
you excel yourself, and you fail to teach Oh Joy the
art. His never quite touch yours.- Yes, another,
please."
 CHAPTER XXI

RAHAM, riding solitary through the redwood

G canyons among the hills that overlooked the
ranch center, was getting acquainted with
Selim, the eleven-hundred-pound, coal-black gelding
which Dick had furnished him in place of the
lighter Altadena. As he rode along, learning the
good nature, the roguishness and the dependable-
ness of the animal, Graham hummed the words of
the " Gypsy Trail " and allowed them to lead his
thoughts. Quite carelessly, foolishly, thinking of
bucolic lovers carving their initials on forest trees,
he broke a spray of laurel and another of red-
wood. He had to stand in the stirrups to pluck a
long-stemmed, five-fingered fern with which to bind
the sprays into a cross. When the patteran was
fashioned, he tossed it on the trail before him and
noted that Selim passed over without treading upon
it. Glancing back, Graham watched it to the next
turn of the trail. A good omen, was his thought,
that it had not been trampled.
More five-fingered ferns to be had for the reach-
ing, more branches of redwood and laurel brushing
his face as he rode, invited him to continue the manu-
facture of patterans, which he dropped as he fash-
ioned them. An hour later, at the head of the can-
yon, where he knew the trail over the divide was
difficult and stiff, he debated his course and turned
back.
250
 THE LITTLE LADY 251

Selim warned him by nickering. Came an an-

swering nicker from close at hand. The trail was
wide and easy, and Graham put his mount into a
fox trot, swung a wide bend, and overtook Paula on
the Fawn.
" Hello ! " he called. " Hello ! Hello ! "
She reined in till he was alongside .
" I was just turning back," she said. " Why did
you turn back? I thought you were going over the
divide to Little Grizzly."
" You knew I was ahead of you? " he asked, ad-
miring the frank, boyish way of her eyes straight-
gazing into his.
" Why shouldn't I ? I had no doubt at the sec-
ond patteran."
" Oh, I'd forgotten about them," he laughed
guiltily. " Why did you turn back ? "
She waited until the Fawn and Selim had stepped
over a fallen alder across the trail, so that she could
look into Graham's eyes when she answered :
" Because I did not care to follow your trail.—
To follow anybody's trail," she quickly amended.
" I turned back at the second one."
He failed of a ready answer, and an awkward si-
lence was between them. Both were aware of this
awkwardness, due to the known but unspoken things.
" Do you make a practice of dropping pat-
terans ? " Paula asked.
" The first I ever left," he replied, with a shake
of the head. " But there was such a generous sup-
ply of materials it seemed a pity, and, besides, the
song was haunting me."
" It was haunting me this morning when I woke
 252 THE LITTLE LADY

up," she said, this time her face straight ahead so

that she might avoid a rope of wild grapevine that
hung close to her side of the trail.
And Graham, gazing at her face in profile, at her
crown of gold-brown hair, at her singing throat,
felt the old ache at the heart, the hunger and the
yearning. The nearness of her was a provocation.
The sight of her, in her fawn-colored silk corduroy,
tormented him with a rush of visions of that form
of hers — swimming Mountain Lad, swan-diving
through forty feet of air, moving down the long
room in the dull-blue dress of medieval fashion with
the maddening knee-lift of the clinging draperies.
" A penny for them," she interrupted his vision-
ing. His answer was prompt.
" Praise to the Lord for one thing: you haven't
once mentioned Dick."
" Do you so dislike him ? "
" Be fair," he commanded, almost sternly. " It
is because I like him. Otherwise ..."
" What? " she queried.
Her voice was brave, although she looked straight
before her at the Fawn's pricking ears.
" I can't understand why I remain. I should have
been gone long ago."
" Why ? " she asked, her gaze still on the prick-
ing ears.
" Be fair, be fair," he warned. " You and I
scarcely need speech for understanding."
She turned full upon him, her cheeks warming
with color, and, without speech, looked at him.
Her whip-hand rose quickly, half way, as if to press
her breast, and half way paused irresolutely, then
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 253

dropped down to her side. But her eyes, he saw,

were glad and startled. There was no mistake.
The startle lay in them, and also the gladness. And
he, knowing as it is given some men to know,
changed the bridle rein to his other hand, reined
close to her, put his arm around her, drew her till
the horses rocked, and, knee to knee and lips on lips,
kissed his desire to hers. There was no mistake -

pressure to pressure, warmth to warmth, and with

an elate thrill he felt her breathe against him .
The next moment she had torn herself loose.
The blood had left her face. Her eyes were blaz-
ing. Her riding-whip rose as if to strike him, then
fell on the startled Fawn. Simultaneously she
drove in both spurs with such suddenness and force
as to fetch a groan and a leap from the mare.
He listened to the soft thuds of hoofs die away
along the forest path, himself dizzy in the saddle
from the pounding of his blood. When the last
hoof-beat had ceased, he half-slipped, half-sank
from his saddle to the ground, and sat on a mossy
boulder. He was hard hit —harder than he had
deemed possible until that one great moment when
he had held her in his arms. Well, the die was cast.
He straightened up so abruptly as to alarm Selim,
who sprang back the length of his bridle rein and
snorted.
What had just occurred had been unpremeditated.
It was one of those inevitable things. It had to
happen. He had not planned it, although he knew,
now, that had he not procrastinated his going, had
he not drifted, he could have foreseen it. And
now, going could not mend matters. The madness
 254 THE LITTLE LADY

of it, the hell of it and the joy of it, was that no

longer was there any doubt. Speech beyond speech,
his lips still tingling with the memory of hers, she
had told him. He dwelt over that kiss returned, his
senses swimming deliciously in the sea of remem-
brance.
He laid his hand caressingly on the knee that had
touched hers, and was grateful with the humility
of the true lover. Wonderful it was that so won-
derful a woman should love him. This was no girl.
This was a woman, knowing her own will and wis-
dom. And she had breathed quickly in his arms,
and her lips had been live to his. He had evoked
what he had given, and he had not dreamed, after
the years, that he had had so much to give.
:
He stood up, made as if to mount Selim, who noz-
zled his shoulder, then paused to debate.
It was no longer a question of going. That was
definitely settled. Dick had certain rights, true.
But Paula had her rights, and did he have the right
to go, after what had happened, unless unless
she went with him ? To go now was to kiss and ride
away. Surely, since the world of sex decreed that
often the same men should love the one woman, and
11 therefore that perfidy should immediately enter into
such a triangle— surely, it was the lesser evil to be
perfidious to the man than to the woman.
It was a real world, he pondered as he rode
slowly along ; and Paula, and Dick, and he were
real persons in it, were themselves conscious real-
ists who looked the facts of life squarely in the face.
This was no affair of priest and code, of other wis-
doms and decisions. Of themselves must it be set
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 255

tled. Some one would be hurt. But life was hurt.

Success in living was the minimizing of pain. Dick
believed that himself, thanks be. The three of
them believed it. And it was nothing new under the
sun. The countless triangles of the countless genera-
tions had all been somehow solved. This, then,
would be solved. All human affairs reached some
solution.
He shook sober thought from his brain and re-
turned to the bliss of memory, reaching his hand to
another caress of his knee, his lips breathing again
to the breathing of hers against them. He even
reined Selim to a halt in order to gaze at the hollow
resting place of his bent arm which she had filled.

Not until dinner did Graham see Paula again,

and he found her the very usual Paula. Not even
his eye, keen with knowledge, could detect any sign
of the day's great happening, nor of the anger that
had whitened her face and blazed in her eyes when
she half-lifted her whip to strike him. In every-
thing she was the same Little Lady of the Big House.
Even when it chanced that her eyes met his, they
were serene, untroubled, with no hint of any secret
in them. What made the situation easier was the
presence of several new guests, women, friends of
Dick and her, come for a couple of days.
Next morning, in the music room, he encountered
them and Paula at the piano.
" Don't you sing, Mr. Graham ? " a Miss Hoff-
man asked.
She was the editor of a woman's magazine pub-
lished in San Francisco, Graham had learned.
256 THE LITTLE LADY

" Oh, adorably," he assured her. " Don't I,

Mrs. Forrest ? " he appealed.
" It is quite true," Paula smiled, " if for no other
reason that he is kind enough not to drown me
quite."
" And nothing remains but to prove our words,"
he volunteered. " There's a duet we sang the other
evening -" He glanced at Paula for a sign.
6
"
-

Which is particularly good for my kind of sing-

ing. " Again he gave her a passing glance and re-
ceived no cue to her will or wish. " The music is
in the living room. I'll go and get it."
" It's the ' Gypsy Trail,' a bright, catchy thing,"
he heard her saying to the others as he passed out.
They did not sing it so recklessly as on that first
occasion, and much of the thrill and some of the
fire they kept out of their voices ; but they sang it
more richly, more as the composer had intended it
and with less of their own particular interpretation.
But Graham was thinking as he sang, and he knew,
too, that Paula was thinking, that in their hearts
another duet was pulsing all unguessed by the sev-
eral women who applauded the song's close.
" You never sang it better, I'll wager," he told
Paula.
For he had heard a new note in her voice. It
had been fuller, rounder, with a generousness of
volume that had vindicated that singing throat.
" And now, because I know you don't know, I'll
tell you what a patteran is," she was saying. . .
 CHAPTER XXII

66
ICK, boy, your position is distinctly Car-
"D lylean," Terrence McFane said in fatherly
tones .

The sages of the madrono grove were at table,

and, with Paula, Dick and Graham, made up the din-
ner party of seven.
" Mere naming of one's position does not settle
it, Terrence," Dick replied. " I know my point is
Carlylean, but that does not invalidate it. Hero-
worship is a very good thing. I am talking, not as
a mere scholastic, but as a practical breeder with
whom the application of Mendelian methods is an
every-day commonplace."
" And I am to conclude," Hancock broke in, " that
a Hottentot is as good as a white man ? "
" Now the South speaks, Aaron," Dick retorted
with a smile. " Prejudice, not of birth, but of early
environment, is too strong for all your philosophy
to shake. It is as bad as Herbert Spencer's handi-
cap of the early influence of the Manchester School."
" And Spencer is on a par with the Hottentot? "
Dar Hyal challenged.
Dick shook his head.
" Let me say this, Hyal. I think I can make it
clear. The average Hottentot, or the average
Melanesian, is pretty close to being on a par with
the average white man. The difference lies in that
257
258 THE LITTLE LADY

there are proportionately so many more Hottentots

and negroes who are merely average, while there is
such a heavy percentage of white men who are not
average, who are above average. These are what
I called the pace-makers that bring up the speed
of their own race average-men. Note that they do
not change the nature or develop the intelligence of
the average-men. But they give them better equip-
ment, better facilities, enable them to travel a faster
collective pace.
" Give an Indian a modern rifle in place of his
bow and arrows and he will become a vastly more
efficient game-getter. The Indian hunter himself
has not changed in the slightest. But his entire In-
dian race sported so few of the above-average men,
that all of them, in ten thousand generations, were
unable to equip him with a rifle."
" Go on, Dick, develop the idea," Terrence en-
couraged. " I begin to glimpse your drive, and
you'll soon have Aaron on the run with his race
prejudices and silly vanities of superiority. "
" These above-average men," Dick continued,
" these pace-makers, are the inventors, the discover-
ers, the constructionists, the sporting dominants. A
race that sports few such dominants is classified as
a lower race, as an inferior race. It still hunts with
bows and arrows . It is not equipped. Now the
average white man, per se, is just as bestial, just as
stupid, just as inelastic, just as stagnative, just as
retrogressive, as the average savage. But the aver-
age white man has a faster pace. The large num-
ber of sporting dominants in his society give him
the equipment, the organization, and impose the law.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 259

" What great man, what hero -

and by that I
mean what sporting dominant — has the Hottentot
race produced ? The Hawaiian race produced only
one — Kamehameha. The negro race in America,
at the outside only two, Booker T. Washington
and Du Bois — and both with white blood in
them...."
Paula feigned a cheerful interest while the exposi-
tion went on. She did not appear bored, but to
Graham's sympathetic eyes she seemed inwardly to
droop. And in an interval of tilt between Terrence
and Hancock, she said in a low voice to Graham :
،،

Words, words, words, so much and so many of

them! I suppose Dick is right
-

he so nearly al-
ways is ; but I confess to my old weakness of inabil-
-

ity to apply all these floods of words to life to

my life, I mean, to my living, to what I should do,

to what I must do." Her eyes were unfalteringly
fixed on his while she spoke, leaving no doubt in
his mind to what she referred. " I don't know what
bearing sporting dominants and race-paces have on
my life. They show me no right or wrong or way
for my particular feet. And now that they've
started they are liable to talk the rest of the even-
ing. ...

" Oh, I do understand what they say," she has-

tily assured him; " but it doesn't mean anything to
me. Words, words , words -

and I want to know

what to do, what to do with myself, what to do with
you, what to do with Dick."
But the devil of speech was in Dick Forrest's
tongue, and before Graham could murmur a reply
to Paula, Dick was challenging him for data on the
260 THE LITTLE LADY

subject from the South American tribes among which

he had traveled. To look at Dick's face it would
have been unguessed that he was aught but a care-
free, happy arguer. Nor did Graham, nor did
Paula, Dick's dozen years' wife, dream that his
casual careless glances were missing no movement of
a hand, no change of position on a chair, no shade
of expression on their faces.
What's up ? was Dick's secret interrogation.
Paula's not herself. She's positively nervous, and
all the discussion is responsible. And Graham's off
color. His brain isn't working up to mark. He's
thinking about something else, rather than about
what he is saying. What is that something else ?
And the devil of speech behind which Dick hid his
secret thoughts impelled him to urge the talk wider
and wilder.
" For once I could almost hate the four sages,"
Paula broke out in an undertone to Graham, who
had finished furnishing the required data.
Dick, himself talking, in cool sentences amplify-
ing his thesis, apparently engrossed in his subject,
saw Paula make the aside, although no word of it
reached his ears, saw her increasing nervousness,
saw the silent sympathy of Graham, and wondered
what had been the few words she uttered, while to
the listening table he was saying :
" Fischer and Speiser are both agreed on the
paucity of unit-characters that circulate in the hered-
ity of the lesser races as compared with the immense
variety of unit-characters in say the French, or Ger-
man, or English. ..."
No one at the table suspected that Dick deliber
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 261

ately dangled the bait of a new trend to the conver-

sation, nor did Leo dream afterward that it was
the master-craft and deviltry of Dick rather than his
own question that changed the subject when he de-
manded to know what part the female sporting
dominants played in the race.
" Females don't sport, Leo, my lad," Terrence,
with a wink to the others, answered him. " Fe-
males are conservative. They keep the type true.
They fix it and hold it, and are the everlasting clog
on the chariot of progress. If it wasn't for the fe-
males every blessed mother's son of us would be a
sporting dominant. I refer to our distinguished
breeder and practical Mendelian whom we have
with us this evening to verify my random state-
ments."
" Let us get down first of all to bedrock and find
out what we are talking about," Dick was prompt
on the uptake. " What is woman ? " he demanded
with an air of earnestness .
" The ancient Greeks said woman was nature's
failure to make a man," Dar Hyal answered, the
while the imp of mockery laughed in the corners of
his mouth and curled his thin cynical lips deri-
sively.
Leo was shocked. His face flushed. There was
pain in his eyes and his lips were trembling as he
looked wistful appeal to Dick.
" The half-sex," Hancock gibed. " As if the
hand of God had been withdrawn midway in the
making, leaving her but a half-soul, a groping soul
at best."
" No ! no ! " the boy cried out. " You must not
262 THE LITTLE LADY

say such things ! — Dick, you know. Tell them,

tell them."
" I wish I could," Dick replied. " But this soul
discussion is vague as souls themselves. We all
know, of our selves, that we often grope, are often
lost, and are never so much lost as when we think
we know where we are and all about ourselves.
What is the personality of a lunatic but a personality
a little less, or very much less, coherent than ours ?
What is the personality of a moron ? Of an idiot ?
Of a feeble-minded child ? Of a horse ? A dog?
A mosquito ? A bullfrog ? A woodtick? A gar-
den snail? And, Leo, what is your own personality
when you sleep and dream ? When you are seasick?
When you are in love? When you have colic ?
When you have a cramp in the leg ? When you are
smitten abruptly with the fear of death? When you
are angry ? When you are exalted with the sense of
the beauty of the world and think you think all inex-
pressible unutterable thoughts ?
" I say think you think intentionally. Did you
really think, then your sense of the beauty of the
world would not be inexpressible, unutterable. It
would be clear, sharp, definite. You could put it
into words. Your personality would be clear, sharp,
and definite as your thoughts and words. Ergo,
Leo, when you deem, in exalted moods, that you
are at the summit of existence, in truth you are thrill-
ing, vibrating, dancing a mad orgy of the senses and
not knowing a step of the dance or the meaning of
the orgy. You don't know yourself. Your soul,
your personality, at that moment, is a vague and
groping thing. Possibly the bullfrog, inflating him
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 263

self on the edge of a pond and uttering hoarse

croaks through the darkness to a warty mate, pos-
sesses also, at that moment, a vague and groping
personality.
" No, Leo, personality is too vague for any of
our vague personalities to grasp. There are seem-
ing men with the personalities of women. There
are plural personalities. There are two-legged hu-
man creatures that are neither fish, flesh, nor fowl.
We, as personalities, float like fog-wisps through
glooms and darknesses and light-flashings. It is
all fog and mist, and we are all foggy and misty in
the thick of the mystery."
" Maybe it's mystification instead of mystery —
man-made mystification," Paula said.
" There talks the true woman that Leo thinks
is not a half-soul," Dick retorted. " The point is,
Leo, sex and soul are all interwoven and tangled to-
gether, and we know little of one and less of the
other."
" But women are beautiful," the boy stammered.
" Oh, ho ! " Hancock broke in, his black eyes
gleaming wickedly. " So, Leo, you identify woman
with beauty? "
The young poet's lips moved, but he could only
nod.
66

Very well, then, let us take the testimony of

painting, during the last thousand years, as a reflex
of economic conditions and political institutions, and
by it see how man has molded and daubed woman
into the image of his desire, and how she has per-
mitted him "
" You must stop baiting Leo," Paula interfered,
264 THE LITTLE LADY

" and be truthful, all of you, and say what you do

know or do believe."
" Woman is a very sacred subject," Dar Hyal
enunciated solemnly.
" There is the Madonna," Graham suggested,
stepping into the breach to Paula's aid.
"And the cerebrale," Terrence added, winning
a nod of approval from Dar Hyal.
" One at a time," Hancock said. " Let us con-
sider the Madonna-worship, which was a particular
woman-worship in relation to the general woman-
worship of all women to-day and to which Leo sub-
scribes. Man is a lazy, loafing savage. He dis-
likes to be pestered. He likes tranquillity, repose.
And he finds himself, ever since man began, saddled
to a restless, nervous, irritable, hysterical traveling
companion, and her name is woman. She has
moods, tears, vanities, angers, and moral irresponsi-
bilities . He couldn't destroy her. He had to have
her, although she was always spoiling his peace.
What was he to do ? "
" Trust him to find a way—the cunning rascal,"
Terrence interjected.
" He made a heavenly image of her," Hancock
kept on. " He idealized her good qualities, and put
her so far away that her bad qualities couldn't get
on his nerves and prevent him from smoking his
quiet lazy pipe of peace and meditating upon the
stars. And when the ordinary every-day woman
tried to pester, he brushed her aside from his
thoughts and remembered his heaven-woman, the
perfect woman, the bearer of life and custodian of
immortality.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 265

" Then came the Reformation. Down went the

worship of the Mother. And there was man still
saddled to his repose-destroyer. What did he do
then?"
" Ah, the rascal," Terrence grinned.
" He said : ' I will make of you a dream and
an illusion.' And he did. The Madonna was his
heavenly woman, his highest conception of woman.
He transferred all his idealized qualities of her to
the earthly woman, to every woman, and he has
fooled himself into believing in them and in her
ever since like Leo does. "
" For an unmarried man you betray an amazing
intimacy with the pestiferousness of woman," Dick
commented. " Or is it all purely theoretical ? "
Terrence began to laugh.
" Dick, boy, it's Laura Marholm Aaron's been
just reading. He can spout her chapter and verse."
" And with all this talk about woman we have
not yet touched the hem of her garment," Graham
said, winning a grateful look from Paula and Leo.
" There is love," Leo breathed. " No one has
said one word about love."
" And marriage laws, and divorces, and polyg-
amy, and monogamy, and free love," Hancock rat-
tled off.
" And why, Leo," Dar Hyal queried, " is woman,
in the game of love, always the pursuer, the hunt-
ress ? "
" Oh, but she isn't," the boy answered quietly,
with an air of superior knowledge. " That is just
some of your Shaw nonsense."
" Bravo, Leo," Paula applauded.
266 THE LITTLE LADY

" Then Wilde was wrong when he said woman

attacks by sudden and strange surrenders ? " Dar
Hyal asked.
" But don't you see," protested Leo, " all such
talk makes woman a monster, a creature of prey."
As he turned to Dick, he stole a side glance at Paula
and love welled in his eyes. " Is she a creature of
prey, Dick ? "
" No," Dick answered slowly, with a shake of
head, and gentleness was in his voice for sake
of what he had just seen in the boy's eyes. " I
cannot say that woman is a creature of prey. Nor
can I say she is a creature preyed upon. Nor will
I say she is a creature of unfaltering joy to man.
But I will say that she is a creature of much joy to
man —"
" And of much foolishness," Hancock added.
" Of much fine foolishness," Dick gravely
amended.
" Let me ask Leo something," Dar Hyal said.
" Leo, why is it that a woman loves the man who
beats her ? "
" And doesn't love the man who doesn't beat
her? " Leo countered.
" Precisely."
" Well, Dar, you are partly right and mostly
wrong.— Oh, I have learned about definitions
from you fellows. You've cunningly left them out
of your two propositions. Now I'll put them in for
you. A man who beats a woman he loves is a low
type man. A woman No loves the man who beats
her is a low type woman. No high type man beats
the woman he loves. No high type woman," and
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 267

all unconsciously Leo's eyes roved to Paula, " could

love a man who beats her. " 1

" No, Leo," Dick said, " I assure you I have

never, never beaten Paula. "
" So you see, Dar," Leo went on with flushing
cheeks, " you are wrong. Paula loves Dick with-
out being beaten."
With what seemed pleased amusement beaming on
his face, Dick turned to Paula as if to ask her silent
approval of the lad's words; but what Dick sought
was the effect of the impact of such words under
the circumstances he apprehended. In Paula's eyes
he thought he detected a flicker of something he
knew not what. Graham's face he found expres-
sionless insofar as there was no apparent change
of the expression of interest that had been there.
"Woman has certainly found her St. George to-
night, " Graham complimented. " Leo, you shame
me. Here I sit quietly by while you fight three drag-
ons."
" And such dragons," Paula joined in. " If they
drove O'Hay to drink, what will they do to you,
Leo? "
" No knight of love can ever be discomfited by all
the dragons in the world," Dick said. " And the
best of it, Leo, is in this case the dragons are more
right than you think, and you are more right than
they just the same. "
" Here's a dragon that's a good dragon, Leo,
lad," Terrence spoke up . " This dragon is going to
desert his disreputable companions and come over
on your side and be a Saint Terrence. And this
Saint Terrence has a lovely question to ask you."
268 THE LITTLE LADY

" Let this dragon roar first," Hancock inter-

posed. " Leo, by all in love that is sweet and lovely,
I ask you : why do lovers, out of jealousy, so often
kill the woman they love ? "
" Because they are hurt, because they are insane,"
came the answer, " and because they have been un-
fortunate enough to love a woman so low in type
that she could be guilty of making them jealous."
" But, Leo, love will stray," Dick prompted.
" You must give a more sufficient answer."
" True for Dick, " Terrence supplemented.
" And it's helping you I am to the full stroke of your
sword. Love will stray among the highest types,
and when it does in steps the green-eyed monster.
Suppose the most perfect woman you can imagine
should cease to love the man who does not beat her
and come to love another man who loves her and
will not beat her—what then ? All highest types,
mind you. Now up with your sword and slash into
the dragons."
" The first man will not kill her nor injure her in
any way, " Leo asserted stoutly. " Because if he
did he would not be the man you describe. He
would not be high type, but low type."
" You mean, he would get out of the way? " Dick
asked, at the same time busying himself with a cigar-
ette so that he might glance at no one's face.
Leo nodded gravely.
" He would get out of the way, and he would
make the way easy for her, and he would be very
gentle with her."
" Let us bring the argument right home," Han-
cock said. " We'll suppose you're in love with Mrs.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 269

Forrest, and Mrs. Forrest is in love with you, and

you run away together in the big limousine "
" Oh, but I wouldn't," the boy blurted out, his
cheeks burning.
" Leo, you are not complimentary," Paula en-
couraged.
" It's just supposing, Leo," Hancock urged.
The boy's embarrassment was pitiful, and his
voice quivered, but he turned bravely to Dick and
said:
" That is for Dick to answer. "
" And I'll answer," Dick said. " I wouldn't kill
Paula. Nor would I kill you, Leo. That wouldn't
be playing the game. No matter what I felt at
heart, I'd say, ' Bless you, my children.' But just
"
the same ' He paused, and the laughter signals
in the corners of his eyes advertised a whimsey —
" I'd say to myself that Leo was making a sad mis-
take. You see, he doesn't know Paula."
" She would be for interrupting his meditations
on the stars, " Terrence smiled.
" Never, never, Leo, I promise you," Paula ex-
claimed.
" There do you belie yourself, Mrs. Forrest,"
Terrence assured her. " In the first place, you
couldn't help doing it. Besides, it'd be your bounden
duty to do it. And, finally, if I may say so, as some-
what of an authority, when I was a mad young lover
of a man, with my heart full of a woman and my
eyes full of the stars, 'twas ever the dearest delight
to be loved away from them by the woman out of my
heart."
" Terrence, if you keep on saying such lovely
270 THE LITTLE LADY

things, " cried Paula, " I'll run away with both you
and Leo in the limousine."
،،
Hurry the day," said Terrence gallantly. " But
leave space among your fripperies for a few books
on the stars that Leo and I may be studying in odd
moments ."
The combat ebbed away from Leo, and Dar
Hyal and Hancock beset Dick.
" What do you mean by ' playing the game ' ? "
Dar Hyal asked.
66
Just what I said, just what Leo said," Dick
answered; and he knew that Paula's boredom and
nervousness had been banished for some time and
that she was listening with an interest almost eager.
" In my way of thinking, and in accord with my tem-
perament, the most horrible spiritual suffering I can
imagine would be to kiss a woman who endured my
kiss."
66
Suppose she fooled you, say for old sake's sake,
or through desire not to hurt you, or pity for you ? "
Hancock propounded.
" It would be, to me, the unforgivable sin," came
Dick's reply. " It would not be playing the game -

for her. I cannot conceive the fairness, nor the sat-

isfaction, of holding the woman one loves a moment
longer than she loves to be held. Leo is very right.
The drunken artisan, with his fists, may arouse and
keep love alive in the breast of his stupid mate. But
the higher human males, the males with some shadow
of rationality, some glimmer of spirituality, cannot
lay rough hands on love. With Leo, I would make
the way easy for the woman, and I would be very
gentle with her."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 27 I
1

" Then what becomes of your boasted monogamic

marriage institution of Western civilization ? " Dar
Hyal asked.
And Hancock : " You argue for free love, then? "
" I can only answer with a hackneyed truism,"
Dick said. " There can be no love that is not free.
Always, please, remember the point of view is that
of the higher types. And the point of view answers
you, Dar. The vast majority of individuals must
be held to law and labor by the monogamic institu-
tion, or by a stern, rigid marriage institution of some
sort. They are unfit for marriage freedom or love
freedom. Freedom of love, for them, would be
merely license of promiscuity. Only such nations
have risen and endured where God and the State have
kept the people's instincts in discipline and order."
" Then you don't believe in the marriage laws for
say yourself, " Dar Hyal inquired, " while you do
believe in them for other men ? "
" I believe in them for all men. Children, family,
career, society, the State — all these things make
marriage, legal marriage, imperative. And by the
same token that is why I believe in divorce. Men,
all men, and women, all women, are capable of lov-
ing more than once, of having the old love die and
of finding a new love born. The State cannot con-
trol love any more than can a man or a woman.
When one falls in love one falls in love, and that's
all he knows about it. There it is — throbbing ,
sighing, singing, thrilling love. But the State can
control license."
" It is a complicated free love that you stand for,"
Hancock criticised.
272 THE LITTLE LADY

" True, and for the reason that man, living in so-
ciety, is a most complicated animal."
" But there are men, lovers, who would die at
the loss of their loved one," Leo surprised the table
by his initiative. " They would die if she died, they
would die -

oh so more quickly — if she lived and

loved another."
" Well, they'll have to keep on dying as they have
always died in the past," Dick answered grimly.
" And no blame attaches anywhere for their deaths.
We are so made that our hearts sometimes stray."
" My heart would never stray," Leo asserted
proudly, unaware that all at the table knew his secret.
" I could never love twice, I know."
" True for you, lad," Terrence approved. " The
voice of all true lovers is in your throat. 'Tis the
absoluteness of love that is its joy— how did
Shelley put it ?— or was it Keats ? — ' All a wonder
and a wild delight.' Sure, a miserable skinflint of
a half-baked lover would it be that could dream
there was aught in woman form one-thousandth part
as sweet, as ravishing and enticing, as glorious and
wonderful as his own woman that he could ever love
again."

And as they passed out from the dining room,

Dick, continuing the conversation with Dar Hyal,
was wondering whether Paula would kiss him good
night or slip off to bed from the piano. And Paula,
talking to Leo about his latest sonnet which he had
shown her, was wondering if she could kiss Dick,
and was suddenly greatly desirous to kiss him, she
knew not why.
 CHAPTER XXIII

HERE was little talk that same evening after

T dinner. Paula, singing at the piano, discon-
certed Terrence in the midst of an apostrophe
on love. He quit a phrase midmost to listen to
the something new he heard in her voice, then slid
noiselessly across the room to join Leo at full length 1

on the bearskin. Dar Hyal and Hancock likewise

abandoned the discussion, each isolating himself in a
capacious chair. Graham, seeming least attracted,
browsed in a current magazine, but Dick observed
that he quickly ceased turning the pages. Nor did
Dick fail to catch the new note in Paula's voice and
to endeavor to sense its meaning.
When she finished the song the three sages strove
to tell her all at the same time that for once she had
forgotten herself and sung out as they had always
claimed she could. Leo lay without movement or
speech, his chin on his two hands, his face trans-
figured.
" It's all this talk on love," Paula laughed, " and
all the lovely thoughts Leo and Terrence .. and
Dick have put into my head."
Terrence shook his long mop of iron-gray hair.
" Into your heart you'd be meaning," he corrected.
" 'Tis the very heart and throat of love that are
yours this night. And for the first time, dear lady,
273
274 THE LITTLE LADY

have I heard the full fair volume that is yours.

Never again plaint that your voice is thin. Thick
it is, and round it is, as a great rope, a great golden
rope for the mooring of argosies in the harbors of
the Happy Isles."
" And for that I shall sing you the Gloria," she
66

answered, to celebrate the slaying of the dragons

by Saint Leo, by Saint Terrence and, of course,
...

by Saint Richard."
Dick, missing nothing of the talk, saved himself
from speech by crossing to the concealed sideboard
and mixing for himself a Scotch and soda.
While Paula sang the Gloria, he sat on one of the
couches, sipping his drink and remembering keenly .
Once before he had heard her sing like that— in
Paris, during their swift courtship, and directly after-
ward, during their honeymoon on the All Away .
A little later, using his empty glass in silent in-
vitation to Graham, he mixed highballs for both of
them, and, when Graham had finished his, suggested
to Paula that she and Graham sing the "Gypsy
Trail."
She shook her head and began Das Kraut Ver-
gessenheit.
" She was not a true woman, she was a terrible
woman," the song's close wrung from Leo. "And
he was a true lover. She broke his heart, but still
he loved her. He cannot love again because he can-
not forget his love for her."
" And now, Red Cloud, the Song of the Acorn,"
Paula said, smiling over to her husband. "Put
down your glass, and be good, and plant the acorns ."
Dick lazily hauled himself off the couch and stood
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 275

up, shaking his head mutinously, as if tossing a mane,

and stamping ponderously with his feet in simulation
of Mountain Lad.
" I'll have Leo know that he is not the only poet
and love-knight on the ranch. Listen to Mountain
Lad's song, all wonder and wild delight, Terrence,
and more. Mountain Lad doesn't moon about the
loved one. He doesn't moon at all. He incarnates
love, and rears right up in meeting and tells them
so. Listen to him ! "
Dick filled the room and shook the air with wild,
glad, stallion nickering; and then, with mane-tossing
and foot-pawing, chanted:
" Hear me ! I am Eros ! I stamp upon the hills.
I fill the wide valleys. The mares hear me, and
startle, in quiet pastures; for they know me. The
land is filled with fatness, and the sap is in the trees.
It is the spring. The spring is mine. I am mon-
arch of my kingdom of the spring. The mares re-
member my voice. They knew me aforetimes
through their mothers before them. Hear me ! I
am Eros. I stamp upon the hills, and the wide val-
leys are my heralds, echoing the sound of my ap-
proach."
It was the first time the sages of the madrono
grove had heard Dick's song, and they were loud in
4 applause. Hancock took it for a fresh start in the
discussion, and was beginning to elaborate a biologic
Bergsonian definition of love, when he was stopped
by Terrence, who had noticed the pain that swept
across Leo's face .
" Go on, please, dear lady," Terrence begged.
" And sing of love, only of love; for it is my expe
276 THE LITTLE LADY

rience that I meditate best upon the stars to the ac-

companiment of a woman's voice."
A little later, Oh Joy, entering the room, waited
till Paula finished a song, then moved noiselessly to
Graham and handed him a telegram. Dick scowled
at the interruption.
" Very important — I think," the Chinese ex-
plained to him.
" Who took it ? " Dick demanded.
" Me — I took it," was the answer. " Night
clerk at Eldorado call on telephone. He say im-
portant. I take it."
" It is, fairly so," Graham spoke up, having
finished reading the message. " Can I get a train
out to-night for San Francisco, Dick ? "
" Oh Joy, come back a moment," Dick called,
looking at his watch. " What train for San Fran-
cisco stops at Eldorado ? "
" Eleven-ten," came the instant information.
" Plenty time. Not too much. I call chauffeur ? "
Dick nodded.
" You really must jump out to-night ? " he asked
Graham.
66

Really. It is quite important. Will I have

time to pack ? "
Dick gave a confirmatory nod to Oh Joy, and said
to Graham :
" Just time to throw the needful into a grip. " He
turned to Oh Joy. " Is Oh My up yet ? "
" Yessr."
" Send him to Mr. Graham's room to help, and
let me know as soon as the machine is ready. No
limousine. Tell Saunders to take the racer."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 277

" One fine big strapping man, that," Terrence

commented, after Graham had left the room.
They had gathered about Dick, with the exception
of Paula, who remained at the piano, listening.
" One of the few men I'd care to go along with,
hell for leather, on a forlorn hope or anything of
that sort," Dick said. " He was on the Nethermere
when she went ashore at Pango in the '97 hurricane.
Pango is just a strip of sand, twelve feet above high
water mark, a lot of cocoanuts, and uninhabited.
Forty women among the passengers, English officers'
wives and such. Graham had a bad arm, big as a
leg— snake bite.
" It was a thundering sea. Boats couldn't live.
They smashed two and lost both crews. Four sail-
ors volunteered in succession to carry a light line
ashore. And each man, in turn, dead at the end of
it, was hauled back on board. While they were un-
tying the last one, Graham, with an arm like a leg,
stripped for it and went to it. And he did it, al-
though the pounding he got on the sand broke his
bad arm and staved in three ribs. But he made the
line fast before he quit. In order to haul the haw-
ser ashore, six more volunteered to go in on Evan's
line to the beach. Four of them arrived. And only
one woman of the forty was lost she died of heart
-

> disease and fright.

" I asked him about it once. He was as bad as an
Englishman. All I could get out of the beggar was
that the recovery was uneventful. Thought that the
salt water, the exercise, and the breaking of the
bone had served as counter-irritants and done the
arm good."
278 THE LITTLE LADY

Oh Joy and Graham entered the room from op-

posite ends. Dick saw that Graham's first questing
glance was for Paula.
" All ready, sir," Oh Joy announced.
Dick prepared to accompany his guest outside to
the car; but Paula evidenced her intention of remain-
ing in the house. Graham started over to her to
murmur perfunctory regrets and good-by.
And she, warm with what Dick had just told of
him, pleasured at the goodly sight of him, dwelling
with her eyes on the light, high poise of head, the
careless, sun-sanded hair, and the lightness, almost
debonaireness, of his carriage despite his weight of
body and breadth of shoulders. As he drew near
to her, she centered her gaze on the long gray eyes
whose hint of drooping lids hinted of boyish sullen-
ness. She waited for the expression of sullenness
to vanish as the eyes lighted with the smile she had
come to know so well.
What he said was ordinary enough, as were her
regrets ; but in his eyes, as he held her hand a mo-
ment, was the significance which she had uncon-
sciously expected and to which she replied with her
own eyes. The same significance was in the pressure
of the momentary handclasp. All unpremeditated,
she responded to that quick pressure. As he had
said, there was little need for speech between them.
As their hands fell apart, she glanced swiftly at
Dick; for she had learned much, in their dozen years
together, of his flashes of observance, and had come
to stand in awe of his almost uncanny powers of
guessing facts from nuances, and of linking nuances
into conclusions often startling in their thorough
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 279

ness and correctness. But Dick, his shoulder to-

ward her, laughing over some quip of Hancock, was
just turning his laughter-crinkled eyes toward her as
he started to accompany Graham.
No, was her thought; surely Dick had seen noth-
ing of the secret little that had been exchanged be-
tween them. It had been very little, very quick a
light in the eyes, a muscular quiver of the fingers,
and no lingering. How could Dick have seen or
sensed ? Their eyes had certainly been hidden from
Dick, likewise their clasped hands, for Graham's
back had been toward him .
Just the same, she wished she had not made that
swift glance at Dick. She was conscious of a feel-
ing of guilt, and the thought of it hurt her as she
watched the two big men, of a size and blondness,
go down the room side by side. Of what had she
been guilty ? she asked herself. Why should she
have anything to hide ? Yet she was honest enough
to face the fact and accept, without quibble, that she
had something to hide. And her cheeks burned at the
thought that she was being drifted into deception.
" I won't be but a couple of days," Graham was
saying as he shook hands with Dick at the car.
Dick saw the square, straight look of his eyes,
and recognized the firmness and heartiness of his
gripping hand. Graham half began to say some-
thing, then did not; and Dick knew he had changed
his mind when he said:
" I think, when I get back, that I'll have to pack."
" But the book," Dick protested, inwardly curs-
ing himself for the leap of joy which had been his at
the other's words.
280 THE LITTLE LADΥ

" That's just why," Graham answered. " I've

got to get it finished. It doesn't seem I can work
like you do. The ranch is too alluring. I can't get
down to the book. I sit over it, and sit over it, but
the confounded meadowlarks keep echoing in my
ears, and I begin to see the fields, and the redwood
canyons, and Selim. And after I waste an hour, I
give up and ring for Selim. And if it isn't that, it's
any one of a thousand other enchantments."
He put his foot on the running-board of the puls-
ing car and said, " Well, so long, old man."
" Come back and make a stab at it," urged Dick.
" If necessary, we'll frame up a respectable daily
grind, and I'll lock you in every morning until you've
done it. And if you don't do your work all day, all
day you'll stay locked in. I'll make you work.—
Got cigarettes ?— matches ? "
" Right O."
" Let her go, Saunders," Dick ordered the chauf-
feur; and the car seemed to leap out into the dark-
ness from the brilliantly lighted porte cochere.
Back in the house, Dick found Paula playing to
the madrono sages, and ensconced himself on the
couch to wait and wonder if she would kiss him good
night when bedtime came. It was not, he recog-
nized, as if they made a regular schedule of kissing.
It had never been like that. Often and often he
did not see her until midday, and then in the pres-
ence of guests. And often and often, she slipped
away to bed early, disturbing no one with a good
night kiss to her husband which might well hint to
them that their bedtime had come.
No, Dick concluded, whether or not she kissed him
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 281

on this particular night it would be equally without

significance. But still he wondered.
She played on and sang on interminably, until at
last he fell asleep. When he awoke he was alone in
the room. Paula and the sages had gone out
quietly. He looked at his watch. It marked one
o'clock. She had played unusually late, he knew;
for he knew she had just gone. It was the cessa-
tion of music and movement that had awakened him.
And still he wondered. Often he napped there to
her playing, and always, when she had finished, she
kissed him awake and sent him to bed. But this
night she had not. Perhaps, after all, she was com-
ing back. He lay and drowsed and waited. The
next time he looked at his watch, it was two o'clock.
She had not come back .
He turned off the lights, and as he crossed the
house, pressed off the hall lights as he went, while
the many unimportant little nothings, almost of
themselves, ranged themselves into an ordered text
of doubt and conjecture that he could not refrain
from reading.
On his sleeping porch, glancing at his barometers
and thermometers, her laughing face in the round
frame caught his eyes, and, standing before it, even
bending closer to it, he studied her long.
" Oh, well," he muttered, as he drew up the bed-
covers, propped the pillows behind him and reached
for a stack of proofsheets, " whatever it is I'll have
to play it."
He looked sidewise at her picture.
" But, oh, Little Woman, I wish you wouldn't,"
was the sighed good night.
 CHAPTER XXIV

S luck would have it, beyond chance guests for

A lunch or dinner, the Big House was empty.
In vain, on the first and second days, did Dick
lay out his work, or defer it, so as to be ready for
any suggestion from Paula to go for an afternoon
swim or drive.
He noted that she managed always to avoid the
possibility of being kissed. From her sleeping
porch she called good night to him across the wide
patio. In the morning he prepared himself for her
eleven o'clock greeting. Mr. Agar and Mr. Pitts,
with important matters concerning the forthcoming
ranch sale of stock still unsettled, Dick promptly
cleared out at the stroke of eleven. Up she was,
he knew, for he had heard her singing. As he
waited, seated at his desk, for once he was idle. A
tray of letters before him continued to need his sig-
nature. He remembered this morning pilgrimage
of hers had been originated by her, and by her,
somewhat persistently, had been kept up. And an
adorable thing it was, he decided—that soft call of
" Good morning, merry gentleman," and the folding
of her kimono-clad figure in his arms.
He remembered, further, that he had often cut
that little visit short, conveying the impression to
her, even while he clasped her, of how busy he was.
And he remembered, more than once, the certain
282
 THE LITTLE LADY 283

little wistful shadow on her face as she slipped away.

Quarter past eleven, and she had not come. He
took down the receiver to telephone the dairy, and
in the swift rush of women's conversation, ere he
hung up, he caught Paula's voice :
"- Bother Mr. Wade. Bring all the little
Wades and come, if only for a couple of days —"
Which was very strange of Paula. She had in-
variably welcomed the intervals of no guests, when
she and he were left alone with each other for a
day or for several days. And now she was trying
to persuade Mrs. Wade to come down from Sacra-
mento. It would seem that Paula did not wish to
be alone with him, and was seeking to protect her-
self with company.
He smiled as he realized that that morning em-
brace, now that it was not tendered him, had become
suddenly desirable. The thought came to him of
taking her away with him on one of their travel-
jaunts. That would solve the problem, perhaps.
And he would hold her very close to him and draw
her closer. Why not an Alaskan hunting trip ? She
had always wanted to go. Or back to their old sail-
ing grounds in the days of the All Away — the South
Seas . Steamers ran direct between San Francisco
and Tahiti. In twelve days they could be ashore
in Papeete. He wondered if Lavaina still ran her
boarding house, and his quick vision caught a picture
of Paula and himself at breakfast on Lavaina's
porch in the shade of the mango trees.
He brought his fist down on the desk. No, by
God, he was no coward to run away with his wife
for fear of any man. And would it be fair to her
‫ار‬

284 THE LITTLE LADY

to take her away possibly from where her desire

lay? True, he did not know where her desire lay,
nor how far it had gone between her and Graham.
Might it not be a spring madness with her that would
vanish with the spring ? Unfortunately, he decided,
in the dozen years of their marriage she had never
evidenced any predisposition toward spring madness.
She had never given his heart a moment's doubt.
Herself tremendously attractive to men, seeing much
of them, receiving their admiration and even court,
she had remained always her equable and serene self,
—

Dick Forrest's wife

" Good morning, merry gentleman."
She was peeping in on him, quite naturally from
the hall, her eyes and lips smiling to him, blowing
him a kiss from her finger tips.
" And good morning, my little haughty moon," he
called back, himself equally his natural self.
And now she would come in, he thought; and he
would fold her in his arms, and put her to the test
ofthe kiss.
He opened his arms in invitation. But she did
not enter. Instead, she startled, with one hand
gathered her kimono at her breast, with the
other picked up the trailing skirt as if for flight,
at the same time looking apprehensively down the
hall. Yet his keen ears had caught no sound. She
smiled back at him, blew him another kiss, and was
gone.
Ten minutes later he had no ears for Bonbright,
who, telegrams in hand, startled him as he sat mo-
tionless at his desk, as he had sat, without move-
ment, for ten minutes.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 285

And yet she was happy. Dick knew her too long
in all the expressions of her moods not to realize the
significance of her singing over the house, in the
arcades, and out in the patio. He did not leave his
workroom till the stroke of lunch ; nor did she, as she
sometimes did, come to gather him up on the way.
At the lunch gong, from across the patio, he heard
her trilling die away into the house in the direction
of the dining room.
A Colonel Harrison Stoddard— colonel from
younger service in the National Guard, himself a
retired merchant prince whose hobby was industrial
relations and social unrest — held the table most of
4
the meal upon the extension of the Employers ' Lia-
bility Act so as to include agricultural laborers . But
Paula found a space in which casually to give the
news to Dick that she was running away for the
afternoon on a jaunt up to Wickenberg to the
Masons.
" Of course I don't know when I'll be back —
you know what the Masons are. And I don't dare
ask you to come, though I'd like you along."
Dick shook his head.
" And so," she continued, " if you're not using
Saunders— "
Dick nodded acquiescence.
> " I'm using Callahan this afternoon," he ex-
plained, on the instant planning his own time now
that Paula was out of the question. " I never can
make out, Paul, why you prefer Saunders. Calla-
han is the better driver, and of course the safest."
66
Perhaps that's why," she said with a smile.
" Safety first means slowest most."
286 THE LITTLE LADY

" Just the same I'd back Callahan against Saunders

on a speed-track," Dick championed.
" Where are you bound ? " she asked.
" Oh, to show Colonel Stoddard my one-man and
no-horse farm you know, the automatically cul-
tivated ten-acre stunt I've been frivoling with. A lot
of changes have been made that have been waiting a
week for me to see tried out. I've been too busy.
And after that, I'm going to take him over the colony
—

what do you think ?— five additions the last

week."
" I thought the membership was full," Paula said.
" It was, and still is," Dick beamed. "But these
are babies. And the least hopeful of the families
had the rashness to have twins."
" A lot of wiseacres are shaking their heads over
that experiment of yours, and I make free to say
that I am merely holding my judgment—you've got
to show me by bookkeeping," Colonel Stoddard was
saying, immensely pleased at the invitation to be
shown over in person.
Dick scarcely heard him, such was the rush of
other thoughts. Paula had not mentioned whether
Mrs. Wade and the little Wades were coming, much
less mentioned that she had invited them. Yet this
Dick tried to consider no lapse on her part, for often
and often, like himself, she had guests whose arrival
was the first he knew of their coming.
It was, however, evident that Mrs. Wade was not
coming that day, else Paula would not be running
away thirty miles up the valley. That was it, and
there was no blinking it. She was running away, and
from him. She could not face being alone with
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 287

him with the consequent perils of intimacy—and

perilous, in such circumstances, could have but the
significance he feared. And further, she was making
<
the evening sure. She would not be back for dinner,
or till long after dinner, it was a safe wager, unless
she brought the whole Wickenberg crowd with her.
She would be back late enough to expect him to
be in bed. Well, he would not disappoint her,
he decided grimly, as he replied to Colonel Stod-
dard:
" The experiment works out splendidly on paper,
with decently wide margins for human nature. And
there I admit is the doubt and the danger — the
human nature. But the only way to test it is to test
it, which is what I am doing."
" It won't be the first Dick has charged to profit
and loss, " Paula said.
" But five thousand acres, all the working capital
for two hundred and fifty farmers, and a cash salary
of a thousand dollars each a year ! " Colonel Stod-
dard protested. " A few such failures— if it fails
— would put a heavy drain on the Harvest."
" That's what the Harvest needs," Dick answered
lightly.
Colonel Stoddard looked blank.
" Precisely, " Dick confirmed. Drainage, you
know. The mines are flooded — the Mexican situa-
tion."

It was during the morning of the second day —

the day of Graham's expected return that Dick,
who, by being on horseback at eleven, had avoided a
repetition of the hurt of the previous day's " Good
288 THE LITTLE LADY

morning, merry gentleman " across the distance of

his workroom, encountered Ah Ha in a hall with an
armful of fresh-cut lilacs. The house-boy's way led
toward the tower room, but Dick made sure.
" Where are you taking them, Ah Ha ? " he asked.
" Mr. Graham's room — he come to-day."
Now whose thought was that ? Dick pondered.
Ah Ha's ? — Oh Joy's — or Paula's ? He remem-
bered having heard Graham more than once express
his fancy for their lilacs.
He deflected his course from the library and
strolled out through the flowers near the tower room.
Through the open windows of it came Paula's happy
humming. Dick pressed his lower lip with tight
quickness between his teeth and strolled on.
Some great, as well as many admirable, men and
women had occupied that room, and for them Paula
had never supervised the flower arrangement, Dick
meditated. Oh Joy, himself a master of flowers,
usually attended to that, or had his house-staff ably
drilled to do it.
Among the telegrams Bonbright handed him, was
one from Graham, which Dick read twice, although
it was simple and unmomentous, being merely a post-
ponement of his return.
Contrary to custom, Dick did not wait for the sec-
ond lunch-gong. At the sound of the first he started,
for he felt the desire for one of Oh Joy's cocktails —
the need of a prod of courage, after the lilacs, to
meet Paula. But she was ahead of him. He found
her — who rarely drank, and never alone — just
placing an empty cocktail glass back on the tray.
So she, too, had needed courage for the meal, was
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 289

his deduction, as he nodded to Oh Joy and held up

one finger.
" Caught you at it! " he reproved gaily. " Secret
tippling. The gravest of symptoms. Little I
thought, the day I stood up with you, that the wife
I was marrying was doomed to fill an alcoholic's
grave."
Before she could retort, a young man strolled in
whom she and Dick greeted as Mr. Winters, and
who also must have a cocktail. Dick tried to believe
that it was not relief he sensed in Paula's manner
as she greeted the newcomer. He had never seen
her quite so cordial to him before, although often
enough she had met him. At any rate, there would
be three at lunch.
Mr. Winters, an agricultural college graduate and
special writer for the Pacific Rural Press, as well
as a sort of protege of Dick, had come for data
for an article on California fish-ponds, and Dick
mentally arranged his afternoon's program for him.
" Got a telegram from Evan," he told Paula.
" Won't be back till the four o'clock day after to-
morrow."
" And after all my trouble ! " she exclaimed.
" Now the lilacs will be wilted and spoiled."
Dick felt a warm glow of pleasure. There spoke
his frank, straightforward Paula. No matter what
the game was, or its outcome, at least she would play
it without the petty deceptions. She had always
been that way — too transparent to make a success
ofdeceit.
Nevertheless, he played his own part by a glance
of scarcely interested interrogation.
290 THE LITTLE LADY

" Why, in Graham's room," she explained. " I

had the boys bring a big armful and I arranged them
all myself. He's so fond of them, you know."
Up to the end of lunch, she had made no mention
of Mrs. Wade's coming, and Dick knew definitely
she was not coming when Paula queried casually :
" Expecting anybody ? "
He shook his head, and asked, " Are you doing
anything this afternoon ? "
" Haven't thought about anything," she answered.
" And now I suppose I can't plan upon you with Mr.
Winters to be told all about fish."
" But you can," Dick assured her. " I'm turning
him over to Mr. Hanley, who's got the trout counted
down to the last egg hatched and who knows all the
grandfather bass by name. I'll tell you what—"
He paused and considered. Then his face lighted
as with a sudden idea. " It's a loafing afternoon.
Let's take the rifles and go potting squirrels. I no-
ticed the other day they've become populous on that
hill above the Little Meadow. "
But he had not failed to observe the flutter of
alarm that shadowed her eyes so swiftly, and that
so swiftly was gone as she clapped her hands and
was herself.
" But don't take a rifle for me," she said.
" If you'd rather not—" he began gently.
" Oh, I want to go, but I don't feel up to shoot-
ing. I'll take Le Gallienne's last book along— it
just came in— and read to you in betweenwhiles.
Remember, the last time I did that when we went
squirreling it was his ' Quest of the Golden Girl '
I read to you."
 CHAPTER XXV

AULA on the Fawn, and Dick on the Outlaw,

P byrodesideoutasfrom the Big House as nearly side
the Outlaw's wicked perversity per-
mitted. The conversation she permitted was frag-
mentary. With tiny ears laid back and teeth ex-
posed, she would attempt to evade Dick's restraint
of rein and spur and win to a bite of Paula's leg or
the Fawn's sleek flank, and with every defeat the
pink flushed and faded in the whites of her eyes.
Her restless head-tossing and pitching attempts to
rear (thwarted by the martingale) never ceased,
save when she pranced and sidled and tried to whirl.
" This is the last year of her," Dick announced.
" She's indomitable. I've worked two years on her
without the slightest improvement. She knows me,
knows my ways, knows I am her master, knows
when she has to give in, but is never satisfied. She
nourishes the perennial hope that some time she'll
catch me napping, and for fear she'll miss that time
she never lets any time go by."
" And some time she may catch you," Paula said.
" That's why I'm giving her up. It isn't exactly
a strain on me, but soon or late she's bound to get me
if there's anything in the law of probability. It may
be a million-to-one shot, but heaven alone knows
where in the series of the million that fatal one is go-
ing to pop up."
291
292 THE LITTLE LADY

" You're a wonder, Red Cloud," Paula smiled.

" Why ? "
" You think in statistics and percentages, averages
and exceptions. I wonder, when we first met, what
particular formula you measured me up by."
" I'll be darned if I did," he laughed back.
" There was where all signs failed. I didn't have a
statistic that applied to you. I merely acknowledged
to myself that here was the most wonderful female
woman ever born with two good legs, and I knew
that I wanted her more than I had ever wanted any-
thing. I just had to have her —"
" And got her," Paula completed for him. " But
since, Red Cloud, since. Surely you've accumulated
enough statistics on me."
" A few, quite a few," he admitted. " But I
hope never to get the last one —"
He broke off at sound of the unmistakable nicker
of Mountain Lad. The stallion appeared, the cow-
boy on his back, and Dick gazed for a moment at the
perfect action of the beast's great swinging trot.
" We've got to get out of this," he warned, as
Mountain Lad, at sight of them, broke into a gallop.
Together they pricked their mares, whirled them
about, and fled, while from behind they heard the
soothing " Whoas " of the rider, the thuds of the
heavy hoofs on the roadway, and a wild imperative
neigh . The Outlaw answered, and the Fawn was
but a moment behind her. From the commotion
they knew Mountain Lad was getting tempestuous.
Leaning to the curve, they swept into a cross-road
and in fifty paces pulled up, where they waited till
the danger was past.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 293

" He's never really injured anybody yet," Paula

said, as they started back.
" Except when he casually stepped on Cowley's
toes. You remember he was laid up in bed for a
month," Dick reminded her, straightening out the
Outlaw from a sidle and with a flicker of glance
catching the strange look with which Paula was re-
garding him .
There was question in it, he could see, and love in
it, and fear-
— yes, almost fear, or at least appre-
hension that bordered on dismay; but, most of all,
a seeking, a searching, a questioning. Not entirely
ungermane to her mood, was his thought, had been
that remark of his thinking in statistics.
But he made that he had not seen, whipping out
his pad, and, with an interested glance at a culvert
they were passing, making a note.
" They missed it," he said. " It should have been
repaired a month ago."
" What has become of all those Nevada mus-
tangs ? " Paula inquired.
This was a flyer Dick had taken, when a bad sea-
son for Nevada pasture had caused mustangs to sell
for a song with the alternative of starving to death.
He had shipped a trainload down and ranged them
in his wilder mountain pastures to the west.
" It's time to break them," he answered. " And
I'm thinking of a real old-fashioned rodeo next week.
What do you say? Have a barbecue and all the
rest, and invite the country side?"
" And then you won't be there," Paula objected.
" I'll take a day off. Is it a go ? "
They reined to one side of the road, as she agreed,
294 THE LITTLE LADY

to pass three farm tractors, all with their trailage

of ganged discs and harrows .
" Moving them across to the Rolling Meadows, "
he explained. " They pay over horses on the right
ground."
Rising from the home valley, passing through cul-
tivated fields and wooded knolls, they took a road
busy with many wagons hauling road-dressing from
the rock-crusher they could hear growling and
crunching higher up.
" Needs more exercise than I've been giving her,"
Dick remarked, jerking the Outlaw's bared teeth
away from dangerous proximity to the Fawn's flank.
" And it's disgraceful the way I've neglected
Duddy and Fuddy," Paula said. " I've kept their
feed down like a miser, but they're a lively handful
just the same."
Dick heard her idly, but within forty-eight hours
he was to remember with hurt what she had said.
They continued on till the crunch of the rock-
crusher died away, penetrated a belt of woodland,
crossed a tiny divide where the afternoon sunshine
was wine-colored by the manzanita and rose-colored
by madronos, and dipped down through a young
planting of eucalyptus to the Little Meadow. But
before they reached it, they dismounted and tied
their horses . Dick took the .22 automatic rifle from
his saddle-holster, and with Paula advanced softly
to a clump of redwoods on the edge of the meadow.
They disposed themselves in the shade and gazed
out across the meadow to the steep slope of hill that
came down to it a hundred and fifty yards away.
" There they are — three - four of them,"
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 295

Paula whispered, as her keen eyes picked the squir-

rels out amongst the young grain .
These were the wary ones, the sports in the direc-
tion of infinite caution who had shunned the poisoned
grain and steel traps of Dick's vermin catchers.
They were the survivors, each of a score of their
fellows not so cautious, themselves fit to repopulate
the hillside.
Dick filled the chamber and magazine with tiny
cartridges, examined the silencer, and, lying at full
length, leaning on his elbow, sighted across the
meadow. There was no sound of explosion when
he fired, only the click of the mechanism as the
bullet was sped, the empty cartridge ejected, a fresh
cartridge flipped into the chamber, and the trigger
re-cocked. A big, dun-colored squirrel leaped in the
air, fell over, and disappeared in the grain. Dick
waited, his eye along the rifle and directed toward
several holes around which the dry earth showed
widely as evidence of the grain which had been de-
stroyed. When the wounded squirrel appeared,
scrambling across the exposed ground to safety, the
rifle clicked again and he rolled over on his side
and lay still.
At the first click, every squirrel but the stricken
one, had made into its burrow. Remained nothing
> to do but wait for their curiosity to master caution.
This was the interval Dick had looked forward to.
As he lay and scanned the hillside for curious heads
to appear, he wondered if Paula would have some-
thing to say to him. In trouble she was, but would
she keep this trouble to herself? It had never been
her way. Always, soon or late, she brought her
 296 THE LITTLE LADY

troubles to him. But, then, he reflected, she had

never had a trouble of this nature before. It was
just the one thing that she would be least prone to
discuss with him. On the other hand, he reasoned,
there was her everlasting frankness. He had mar-
veled at it, and joyed in it, all their years together.
Was it to fail her now ?
So he lay and pondered. She did not speak. She
was not restless. He could hear no movement.
When he glanced to the side at her he saw her lying
on her back, eyes closed, arms outstretched, as if
tired.
A small head, the color of the dry soil of its home,
peeped from a hole. Dick waited long minutes, un-
til, assured that no danger lurked, the owner of the
head stood full up on its hind legs to seek the cause
of the previous click that had startled it. Again the
rifle clicked.
" Did you get him ? " Paula queried, without open-
ing her eyes.
" Yea, and a fat one," Dick answered. " I
stopped a line of generations right there."
An hour passed. The afternoon sun beat down
but was not uncomfortable in the shade. A gentle
breeze fanned the young grain into lazy wavelets at
times, and stirred the redwood boughs above them.
Dick added a third squirrel to the score. Paula's
book lay beside her, but she had not offered to read.
" Anything the matter ? " he finally nerved him-
self to ask.
" No; headache— a beastly little neuralgic hurt
across the eyes, that's all. "
" Too much embroidery," he teased.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 297

" Not guilty," was her reply.

All was natural enough in all seeming; but Dick,
as he permitted an unusually big squirrel to leave its
burrow and crawl a score of feet across the bare
earth toward the grain, thought to himself : No,
there will be no talk between us this day. Nor will
we nestle and kiss lying here in the grass.
His victim was now at the edge of the grain. He
pulled trigger. The creature fell over, lay still a
moment, then ran in quick awkward fashion toward
its hole. Click, click, click, went the mechanism.
Puffs of dust leaped from the earth close about the
fleeing squirrel, showing the closeness of the misses .
Dick fired as rapidly as he could twitch his fore-
finger on the trigger, so that it was as if he played
a stream of lead from a hose.
He had nearly finished refilling the magazine when
Paula spoke.
" My ! What a fusillade.- Get him ? "
" Yea, grandfather of all squirrels, a mighty grain-
eater and destroyer of sustenance for young calves.
But nine long smokeless cartridges on one squirrel
doesn't pay. I'll have to do better."
The sun dropped lower. The breeze died out.
Dick managed another squirrel and sadly watched
the hillside for more. He had arranged the time
and made his bid for confidence. The situation was
)
as grave as he had feared. Graver it might be, for
all he knew, for his world was crumbling about him.
Old landmarks were shifting their places. He was
bewildered, shaken. Had it been any other woman
than Paula! He had been so sure. There had
been their dozen years to vindicate his surety. ...
 298 THE LITTLE LADY

" Five o'clock, sun he get low," he announced, ris-

ing to his feet and preparing to help her up.
" It did me so much good — just resting," she
66

said, as they started for the horses. My eyes feel

much better. It's just as well I didn't try to read to
you."
" And don't be piggy," Dick warned, as lightly
as if nothing were amiss with him. " Don't dare
steal the tiniest peek into Le Gallienne. You've got
to share him with me later on. Hold up your
hand.— Now, honest to God, Paul."
" Honest to God," she obeyed.
" And may jackasses dance on your grandmother's
grave—"
" And may jackasses dance on my grandmother's
grave," she solemnly repeated.
The third morning of Graham's absence, Dick saw
to it that he was occupied with his dairy manager
when Paula made her eleven o'clock pilgrimage,
peeped in upon him, and called her " Good morning,
merry gentleman," from the door. The Masons,
arriving in several machines with their boisterous
crowd of young people, saved Paula for lunch and
the afternoon; and, on her urging, Dick noted, she
made the evening safe by holding them over for
bridge and dancing.
But the fourth morning, the day of Graham's
expected return, Dick was alone in his workroom at
eleven. Bending over his desk, signing letters, he
heard Paula tiptoe into the room. He did not look
up, but while he continued writing his signature he
listened with all his soul to the faint, silken swish of
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 299

her kimono. He knew when she was bending over

him, and all but held his breath. But when she had
softly kissed his hair and called her " Good morning,
merry gentleman," she evaded the hungry sweep of
his arm and laughed her way out. What affected
him as strongly as the disappointment was the hap-
piness he had seen in her face. She, who so poorly
masked her moods, was bright-eyed and eager as a
child. And it was on this afternoon that Graham
was expected, Dick could not escape making the con-
nection.
He did not care to ascertain if she had replenished
the lilacs in the tower room, and, at lunch, which
was shared with three farm college students from
Davis, he found himself forced to extemporize a busy
afternoon for himself when Paula tentatively sug-
gested that she would drive Graham up from El-
dorado.
" Drive ? " Dick asked.
66
Duddy and Fuddy," she explained. " They're
all on edge, and I just feel like exercising them and
myself. Of course, if you'll share the exercise, we'll
drive anywhere you say, and let him come up in the
machine."
Dick strove not to think there was anxiety in her
manner while she waited for him to accept or decline
her invitation.
" Poor Duddy and Fuddy would be in the happy
hunting grounds if they had to cover my ground this
afternoon," he laughed, at the same time mapping
his program. " Between now and dinner I've got
to do a hundred and twenty miles. I'm taking the
racer, and it's going to be some dust and bump and
300 THE LITTLE LADY

only an occasional low place. I haven't the heart to

ask you along. You go on and take it out of Buddy
and Fuddy."
Paula sighed, but so poor an actress was she that
in the sigh, intended for him as a customary reluct-
ant yielding of his company, he could not fail to de-
tect the relief at his decision.
" Whither away ? " she asked brightly, and again
he noticed the color in her face, the happiness, and
the brilliance of her eyes .
" Oh, I'm shooting away down the river to the
dredging work — Carlson insists I must advise him
-

and then up in to Sacramento, running over the

Teal Slough land on the way, to see Wing Fo
Wong."
" And in heaven's name who is this Wing Fo
Wong ? " she laughingly queried, " that you must
trot and see him ? "
" A very important personage, my dear. Worth
all of two millions —made in potatoes and aspar-
agus down in the Delta country. I'm leasing three
hundred acres of the Teal Slough land to him."
Dick addressed himself to the farm students.
" That land lies just out of Sacramento on the west
side of the river. It's a good example of the land
famine that is surely coming. It was tule swamp
when I bought it, and I was well laughed at by the
old-timers. I even had to buy out a dozen hunting
preserves. It averaged me eighteen dollars an acre,
and not so many years ago either.
" You know the tule swamps. Worthless, save
for ducks and low-water pasturage. It cost over
three hundred an acre to dredge and drain and to
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 301

pay my quota of the river reclamation work. And

on what basis of value do you think I am making a
ten years' lease to old Wing Fo Wong ? Two thou,
sand an acre. I couldn't net more than that if I
truck-farmed it myself. Those Chinese are wizards
with vegetables, and gluttons for work. No eight
hours for them. It's eighteen hours. The last coolie
is a partner with a microscopic share. That's the way
Wing Fo Wong gets around the eight hour law."
Twice warned and once arrested, was Dick
through the long afternoon. He drove alone, and
though he drove with speed he drove with safety.
Accidents, for which he personally might be respon-
sible, were things he did not tolerate. And they
never occurred. That same sureness and definite-
ness of adjustment with which, without fumbling or
approximating, he picked up a pencil or reached for
a door-knob, was his in the more complicated adjust-
ments, with which, as instance, he drove a high-pow-
ered machine at high speed over busy country roads .
But drive as he would, transact business as he
would, at high pressure with Carlson and Wing Fo
Wong, continually, in the middle ground of his con-
sciousness, persisted the thought that Paula had gone
out of her way and done the most unusual in driv-
ing Graham the long eight miles from Eldorado to
the ranch.
" Phew ! " he started to mutter a thought aloud,
then suspended utterance and thought as he jumped
the racer from forty-five to seventy miles an hour,
swept past to the left of a horse and buggy going
in the same direction, and slanted back to the right
302 THE LITTLE LADY

side of the road with margin to spare but seemingly

under the nose of a run-about coming from the op-
posite direction. He reduced his speed to fifty and
took up his thought :
" Phew ! Imagine little Paul's thoughts if I dared
that drive with some charming girl ! "
He laughed at the fancy as he pictured it, for,
most early in their marriage, he had gauged Paula's
capacity for quiet jealousy. Never had she made a
scene, or dropped a direct remark, or raised a ques-
tion; but from the first, quietly but unmistakably, she
had conveyed the impression of hurt that was hers
if he at all unduly attended upon any woman.
He grinned with remembrance of Mrs. De-
hameny, the pretty little brunette widow Paula's
friend, not his -

who had visited in the long ago in

the Big House. Paula had announced that she was
not riding that afternoon and, at lunch, had heard
him and Mrs. Dehameny arrange to ride into the
redwood canyons beyond the grove of the philoso-
phers. And who but Paula, not long after their
start, should overtake them and make the party
three ! He had smiled to himself at the time, and
felt immensely tickled with Paula, for neither Mrs.
Dehameny nor the ride with her had meant anything
to him.
So it was, from the beginning, that he had re-
stricted his attentions to other women. Ever since
he had been far more circumspect than Paula. He
had even encouraged her, given her a free hand al-
ways, had been proud that his wife did attract fine
fellows, had been glad that she was glad to be
amused or entertained by them. And with reason,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 303

he mused. He had been so safe, so sure of her -

more so, he acknowledged, than had she any right

to be of him. And the dozen years had vindicated
his attitude, so that he was as sure of her as he was
of the diurnal rotation of the earth. And now, was
the form his fancy took, the rotation of the earth
was a shaky proposition and old Oom Paul's flat
world might be worth considering.
He lifted the gauntlet from his left wrist to snatch
a glimpse at his watch. In five minutes Graham
would be getting off the train at Eldorado. Dick,
himself homeward bound west from Sacramento,
was eating up the miles. In a quarter of an hour
the train that he identified as having brought
Graham, went by. Not until he was well past
Eldorado did he overtake Buddy and Fuddy and
the trap. Graham sat beside Paula, who was driv-
ing. Dick slowed down as he passed, waved a hello
to Graham, and, as he jumped into speed again,
called cheerily :
" Sorry I've got to give you my dust. I'll beat
you a game of billiards before dinner, Evan, if you
ever get in."
 CHAPTER XXVI

66
HIS can't go on. We must do something —
"THEThey were in the music room, Paula at
at once."

the piano, her face turned up to Graham who stood

close to her, almost over her.
" You must decide," Graham continued.
Neither face showed happiness in the great thing
that had come upon them, now that they considered
what they must do.
" But I don't want you to go," Paula urged. " I
don't know what I want. You must bear with me.
I am not considering myself. I am past considering
myself. But I must consider Dick. I must consider
you. I ... I am so unused to such a situation,"
she concluded with a wan smile.
" But it must be settled, dear love. Dick is not
blind."
" What has there been for him to see ? " she de-
manded. " Nothing, except that one kiss in the
canyon, and he couldn't have seen that. Do you
think of anything else -

I challenge you, sir."

" Would that there were," he met the lighter touch
in her mood, then immediately relapsed. " I am
mad over you, mad for you. And there I stop.
I do not know if you are equally mad. I do not
know if you are mad at all."
304
 THE LITTLE LADY 305

As he spoke, he dropped his hand to hers on the

keys, and she gently withdrew it.
" Don't you see ? " he complained. " Yet you
wanted me to come back ? "
" I wanted you to come back," she acknowledged,
with her straight look into his eyes . " I wanted
you to come back," she repeated, more softly, as if
musing.
" And I'm all at sea," he exclaimed impatiently.
" You do love me ? "
" I do love you, Evan you know that.
-

But ..." She paused and seemed to be weighing

the matter judicially.
" But what? " he commanded. " Go on. "
" But I love Dick, too. Isn't it ridiculous ? "
He did not respond to her smile, and her eyes
delightedly warmed to the boyish sullenness that
vexed his own eyes . A thought was hot on his
tongue, but he restrained the utterance of it while
she wondered what it was, disappointed not to have
had it.
" It will work out," she assured him gravely. " It
will have to work out somehow. Dick says all things
work out. All is change. What is static is dead,
and we're not dead, any of us are we ? "
" I don't blame you for loving Dick, for . ...

for continuing to love Dick," he answered impa-

tiently. " And for that matter, I don't see what
you find in me compared with him. This is honest.
He is a great man to me, and Great Heart is his
name " she rewarded him with a smile and nod of
approval. " But if you continue to love Dick, how
about me ? "
306 THE LITTLE LADY

" But I love you, too."

" It can't be," he cried, tearing himself from the
piano to make a hasty march across the room and
stand contemplating the Keith on the opposite wall
as if he had never seen it before.
She waited with a quiet smile, pleasuring in his
unruly impetuousness.
" You can't love two men at once," he flung at her.
" Oh, but I do, Evan. That's what I am trying to
work out. Only I don't know which I love more.
Dick I have known a long time. You •

you are
..

a—"
" Recent acquaintance," he broke in, returning to
her with the same angry stride.
" Not that, no, not that, Evan. You have made a
revelation to me of myself. I love you as much as
Dick. I love you more. I- I don't know."
She broke down and buried her face in her hands,
permitting his hand to rest tenderly on her shoulder.
" You see it is not easy for me," she went on.
" There is so much involved, so much that I cannot
understand. You say you are all at sea. Then
think of me all at sea and worse confounded. You
— oh, why talk about it — you are a man with a
man's experiences, with a man's nature. It is all
very simple to you. ' She loves me, she loves me
not.' But I am tangled, confused. I — and I
wasn't born yesterday — have had no experience in
loving variously. I have never had affairs. I loved
only one man ...
and now you. You, and this
love for you, have broken into a perfect marriage,
Evan-"
" I know-" he said.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 307

"-I don't know," she went on. " I must

have time, either to work it out myself or to let it
work itself out. If it only weren't for Dick ..."
her voice trailed off pathetically.
Unconsciously, Graham's hand went farther about
her shoulder.
" No, no — not yet," she said softly, as softly she
removed it, her own lingering caressingly on his a
moment ere she released it. " When you touch me,
I can't think," she begged. " I — I can't think."
" Then I must go," he threatened, without any
sense of threatening. She made a gesture of pro-
test. " The present situation is impossible, unbear-
able. I feel like a cur, and all the time I know I
am not a cur. I hate deception — oh, I can lie with
the Pathan, to the Pathan — but I can't deceive a
man like Great Heart. I'd prefer going right up to
him and saying : ' Dick, I love your wife. She
loves me. What are you going to do about it ? ' "
" Do so," Paula said, fired for the moment.
Graham straightened up with resolution.
" I will. And now."
" No, no," she cried in sudden panic. " You
must go away." Again her voice trailed off, as she
said, " But I can't let you go."

If Dick had had any reason to doubt his suspicion

of the state of Paula's heart, that reason vanished
with the return of Graham. He need look nowhere
for confirmation save to Paula. She was in a flushed
awakening, burgeoning like the full spring all about
them, a happier tone in her happy laugh, a richer
song in her throat, a warmness of excitement and a
 308 THE LITTLE LADY

continuous energy of action animating her. She was

up early and to bed late. She did not conserve her-
self, but seemed to live on the champagne of her
spirits, until Dick wondered if it was because she did
not dare allow herself time to think.
He watched her lose flesh, and acknowledged to
himself that the one result was to make her look
lovelier than ever, to take on an almost spiritual
delicacy under her natural vividness of color and
charm.
1 And the Big House ran on in its frictionless,
! happy, and remorseless way. Dick sometimes specu-
lated how long it would continue so to run on, and
recoiled from contemplation of a future in which it
might not so run on. As yet, he was confident, no
one knew, no one guessed, but himself. But how
long could that continue ? Not long, he was certain.
Paula was not sufficiently the actress. And were she
a master at concealment of trivial, sordid detail, yet
the new note and flush of her would be beyond the
power of any woman to hide.
He knew his Asiatic servants were marvels of
discernment - and discretion, he had to add. But
there were the women. Women were cats. To the
best of them it would be great joy to catch the
radiant, unimpeachable Paula as clay as any daugh-
ter of Eve. And any chance woman in the house,
for a day, or an evening, might glimpse the situation
—
Paula's situation, at least, for he could not make
out Graham's attitude yet. Trust a woman to catch
a woman.
But Paula, different in other ways, was different in
this. He had never seen her display cattishness,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 309

never known her to be on the lookout for other

women on the chance of catching them tripping —
except in relation to him. And he grinned again
at the deliciousness of the affair with Mrs. De-
hameney which had been an affair only in Paula's
apprehension.
Among other things of wonderment, Dick specu-
lated if Paula wondered if he knew.
And Paula did wonder, and for a time without
avail. She could detect no change in his customary
ways and moods or treatment of her. He turned
off his prodigious amount of work as usual, played
as usual, chanted his songs, and was the happy good
fellow. She tried to imagine an added sweetness
toward her, but vexed herself with the fear that it
was imagined.
But it was not for long that she was in doubt.
Sometimes in a crowd, at table, in the living room
in the evening, or at cards, she would gaze at him
through half-veiled lashes when he was unaware,
until she was certain she saw the knowledge in his
eyes and face. But no hint of this did she give to
Graham. His knowing would not help matters. It
might even send him away, which she frankly ad-
mitted to herself was the last thing she should want
to happen.
But when she came to a realization that she was
almost certain Dick knew or guessed, she hardened,
deliberately dared to play with the fire. If Dick
knew—since he knew, she framed it to herself
why did he not speak ? He was ever a straight
talker. She both desired and feared that he might,
until the fear faded and her earnest hope was that
310 THE LITTLE LADY

he would. He was the one who acted, did things,

no matter what they were. She had always de-
pended upon him as the doer. Graham had called
the situation a triangle. Well, Dick could solve it.
He could solve anything. Then why didn't he ?
In the meantime, she persisted in her ardent reck-
lessness, trying not to feel the conscience-pricks of
her divided allegiance, refusing to think too deeply,
riding the top of the wave of her life—as she as-
sured herself, living, living, living. At times she
scarcely knew what she thought, save that she was
very proud in having two such men at heel. Pride
had always been one of her dominant key-notes —
pride of accomplishment, achievement, mastery, as
with her music, her appearance, her swimming. It
was all one — to dance, as she well knew, beauti-
fully ; to dress with distinction and beauty; to swan-
dive, all grace and courage, as few women dared;
or, all fragility, to avalanche down the spill-way on
the back of Mountain Lad and by the will and steel
of her swim the huge beast across the tank.
She was proud, a woman of their own race and
type, to watch these two gray-eyed blond men to-
gether. She was excited, feverish, but not nervous.
Quite coldly, sometimes, she compared the two when
they were together, and puzzled to know for which
of them she made herself more beautiful, more en-
ticing. Graham she held, and she had held Dick
and strove still to hold him.
There was almost a touch of cruelty in the tingles
of pride that were hers at thought of these two royal
men suffering for her and because of her; for she did
not hide from herself the conviction that if Dick
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 311

knew, or, rather, since he did know, he, too, must

be suffering. She assured herself that she was a
woman of imagination and purpose in sex matters,
and that no part of her attraction toward Graham
lay merely in his freshness, newness, difference.
And she denied to herself that passion played more
than the most minor part. Deep down she was con-
scious of her own recklessness and madness, and of an
end to it all that could not but be dreadful to some
one of them or all of them. But she was content
willfully to flutter far above such deeps and to refuse
to consider their existence. Alone, looking at her-
self in her mirror, she would shake her head in mock
reproof and cry out, " Oh, you huntress ! You
huntress ! " And when she did permit herself to
think a little gravely, it was to admit that Shaw and
the sages of the madrono grove might be right in
their diatribes on the hunting proclivities of women.
She denied Dar Hyal's statement that woman was
nature's failure to make a man; but again and again
came to her Wilde's, " Woman attacks by sudden
and strange surrenders." Had she so attacked
Graham ? she asked herself. Sudden and strange,
to her, were the surrenders she had already made.
Were there to be more ? He wanted to go. With
her, or without her, he wanted to go. But she held
—

him how? Was there a tacit promise of sur-

renders to come ? And she would laugh away fur-
ther consideration, confine herself to the fleeting
present, and make her body more beautiful, and
mood herself to be more fascinating, and glow with
happiness in that she was living, thrilling, as she had
never dreamed to live and thrill.
 CHAPTER XXVII

UT it is not the way for a man and a woman,

B in propinquity, to maintain a definite, unwav-
ering distance asunder. Imperceptibly Paula
and Graham drew closer. From lingering eye-gaz-
ings and hand-touchings the way led to permitted
caresses, until there was a second clasping in the
arms and a second kiss long on the lips. Nor this
time did Paula flame in anger. Instead, she com-
manded :
" You must not go."
" I must not stay," Graham reiterated for the
66
thousandth time. Oh, I have kissed behind doors,
and been guilty of all the rest of the silly rubbish,"
he complained. " But this is you, and this is Dick."
" It will work out, I tell you, Evan."
" Come with me then and of ourselves work it
out. Come now."
She recoiled.
" Remember, " Graham encouraged, " what Dick
said at dinner the night Leo fought the dragons —
that if it were you, Paula, his wife, who ran away,
he would say ' Bless you, my children .' "
" And that is just why it is so hard, Evan. He
is Great Heart. You named him well. Listen —
you watch him now. He is as gentle as he said he
would be that night — gentle toward me, I mean.
And more. You watch him -"
312
 THE LITTLE LADY 313

" He knows ? —he has spoken? " Graham

broke in.
" He has not spoken, but I am sure he knows, or
guesses. You watch him. He won't compete
against you -”
66

Compete ! "
" Just that. He won't compete. Remember at
the rodeo yesterday. He was breaking mustangs
when our party arrived, but he never mounted
again. Now he is a wonderful horse-breaker. You
tried your hand. Frankly, while you did fairly well,
you couldn't touch him. But he wouldn't show off
against you. That alone would make me certain
that he guesses.
" Listen . Of late haven't you noticed that he
never questions a statement you make, as he used to
question, as he questions every one else. He con-
tinues to play billiards with you, because there you
best him. He fences and singlesticks with you
there you are even. But he won't box or wrestle
with you."
" He can out-box and out-wrestle me," Graham
muttered ruefully.
" You watch and you will see what I mean by not
competing. He is treating me like a spirited colt,
giving me my head to make a mess of things if I
want to. Not for the world would he interfere.
Oh, trust me, I know him. It is his own code that
he is living up to. He could teach the philosophers
what applied philosophy is.
" No, no ; listen," she rushed over Graham's at-
tempt to interrupt. " I want to tell you more.
There is a secret staircase that goes up from the
314 THE LITTLE LADY

library to Dick's work room. Only he and I use

it, and his secretaries. When you arrive at the
head of it, you are right in his room, surrounded by
shelves of books. I have just come from there. I
was going in to see him when I heard voices. Of
course it was ranch business, I thought, and they
would soon be gone. So I waited. It was ranch
business, but it was so interesting, so, what Hancock
would call, illuminating, that I remained and eaves-
dropped. It was illuminating of Dick, I mean.
" It was the wife of one of the workmen Dick
had on the carpet. Such things do arise on a large
place like this. I wouldn't know the woman if I saw
her, and I didn't recognize her name. She was
whimpering out her trouble when Dick stopped her.
' Never mind all that,' he said. ' What I want to
know is, did you give Smith any encouragement ? '
" Smith isn't his name, but he is one of our fore-
men and has worked eight years for Dick.
" Oh, no, sir,' I could hear her answer. 'He
went out of his way from the first to bother me.
I've tried to keep out of his way, always. Besides,
my husband's a violent-tempered man, and I did so
want him to hold his job here. He's worked nearly
a year for you now, and there aren't any complaints,
are there ? Before that it was irregular work for
a long time, and we had real hard times. It wasn't
his fault. He ain't a drinking man. He always —'
" " That's all right,' Dick stopped her. ' His
work and habits have nothing to do with the matter.
Now you are sure you have never encouraged Mr.
Smith in any way ? ' And she was so sure that she
talked for ten minutes, detailing the foreman's per
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 315

secution of her. She had a pleasant voice — one of

those sweet, timid, woman's voices, and undoubtedly
is quite attractive. It was all I could do to resist
peeping. I wanted to see what she looked like.
" Now this trouble yesterday morning, Dick
said. ' Was it general? I mean, outside of your
husband, and Mr. Smith, was the scene such that
those who live around you knew of it ? '
" " Yes , sir. You see, he had no right to come
into my kitchen. My husband doesn't work under
him anyway. And he had his arm around me and
was trying to kiss me when my husband came in.
My husband has a temper, but he ain't overly strong.
Mr. Smith would make two of him. So he pulled a
knife, and Mr. Smith got him by the arms, and they
fought all over the kitchen. I knew there was mur-
der going to be done and I run out screaming for
help. The folks in the other cottages'd heard the
racket already. They'd smashed the window and
the cook stove, and the place was filled with smoke
and ashes when the neighbors dragged them away
from each other. I'd done nothing to deserve all
that disgrace. You know, sir, the way the women
will talk-
" And Dick hushed her up there, and took all of
five minutes more in getting rid of her. Her great
fear was that her husband would lose his place.
From what Dick told her, I waited. He had made
no decision, and I knew the foreman was next on the
carpet. In he came. I'd have given the world to
see him. But I could only listen.
" Dick jumped right into the thick of it. He de-
scribed the scene and uproar, and Smith acknowl
316 THE LITTLE LADY

edged that it had been riotous for a while. ' She

says she gave you no encouragement,' Dick said
next.

" " Then she lies,' said Smith. She has that way
of looking with her eyes that's an invitation. She
looked at me that way from the first. But it was by
word-of-mouth invitation that I was in her kitchen
yesterday morning. We didn't expect the husband.
But she began to struggle when he hove in sight.
When she says she gave me no encouragement —'
" ' Never mind all that,' Dick stopped him. ' It's
not essential.' ' But it is, Mr. Forrest, if I am to
clear myself,' Smith insisted.
" " No ; it is not essential to the thing you can't
clear yourself of,' Dick answered, and I could hear
that cold, hard, judicial note come into his voice.
Smith could not understand. Dick told him. ' The
thing you have been guilty of, Mr. Smith, is the
scene, the disturbance, the scandal, the wagging of
the women's tongues now going on forty to the min-
ute, the impairment of the discipline and order of
the ranch, all of which is boiled down to the one
grave thing, the hurt to the ranch efficiency.'
" And still Smith couldn't see. He thought the
charge was of violating social morality by pursuing a
married woman, and tried to mitigate the offense by
showing the woman encouraged him and by plead-
ing: ' And after all, Mr. Forrest, a man is only a
man, and I admit she made a fool of me and I made
a fool of myself.'
,

" " Mr. Smith, Dick said. ' You've worked for
me eight years. You've been a foreman six years
of that time. I have no complaint against your
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 317

work. You certainly do know how to handle labor .

About your personal morality I don't care a damn.
You can be a Mormon or a Turk for all it matters
to me. Your private acts are your private acts,
and are no concern of mine as long as they do not
interfere with your work or my ranch. Any one
of my drivers can drink his head off Saturday night,
and every Saturday night. That's his business.
But the minute he shows a hold-over on Monday
morning that is taken out on my horses, that excites
them, or injures them, or threatens to injure them,
or that decreases in the slightest the work they should
perform on Monday, that moment it is my business
and the driver goes down the hill. '
" " You, you mean, Mr. Forrest,' Smith stuttered,
' that, that I'm to go down the hill? ' ' That is just
what I mean, Mr. Smith. You are to go down the
hill, not because you climbed over another man's
fence— that's your business and his; but because
you were guilty of causing a disturbance that is an
impairment of ranch efficiency.'
" Do you know, Evan," Paula broke in on her
recital, " Dick can nose more human tragedy out
of columns of ranch statistics than can the average
fiction writer out of the whirl of a great city. Take
the milk reports — the individual reports of the
milkers — so many pounds of milk, morning and
night, from cow so-and-so, so many pounds from
cow so-and-so. He doesn't have to know the man.
But there is a decrease in the weight of milk. ' Mr.
Parkman,' he'll say to the head dairyman, ' is Barchi
Peratta married ? ' ' Yes, sir.' ' Is he having
trouble with his wife ? ' ' Yes, sir.'
 318 THE LITTLE LADY

" Or it will be : ' Mr. Parkman, Simpkins has

the best long-time record of any of our milkers.
Now he's slumped. What's up ? ' Mr. Parkman
doesn't know. ' Investigate, ' says Dick. ' There's
something on his chest. Talk to him like an uncle
and find out. We've got to get it off his chest.'
And Mr. Parkman finds out. Simpkins' boy, work-
ing his way through Stanford University, has elected
the joy-ride path and is in jail waiting trial for for-
gery. Dick put his own lawyers on the case,
smoothed it over, got the boy out on probation, and
Simpkins' milk reports came back to par. And the
best of it is, the boy made good, Dick kept an eye
on him, saw him through the college of engineering,
and he's now working for Dick on the dredging end,
earning a hundred and fifty a month, married, with
a future before him, and his father still milks."
" You are right," Graham murmured sympa-
thetically. " I well named him when I named him
+ Great Heart. "
" I call him my Rock of Ages," Paula said grate-
fully. " He is so solid. He stands in any storm.—
Oh, you don't really know him. He is so sure.
He stands right up. He's never taken a cropper in
his life. God smiles on him. God has always
smiled on him. He's never been beaten down to his
knees •

yet. I ... I should not care to see

that sight. It would be heartbreaking. And,
Evan —" Her hand went out to his in a pleading
gesture that merged into a half-caress. " I am
afraid for him now. That is why I don't know what
to do. It is not for myself that I back and fill
and hesitate. If he were ignoble, if he were nar-
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 319

row, if he were weak or had one tiniest shred of

meanness, if he had ever been beaten to his knees
before, why, my dear, my dear, I should have been
gone with you long ago."
Her eyes filled with sudden moisture. She stilled
him with a pressure of her hand, and, to regain
herself, she went back to her recital :
" " Your little finger, Mr. Smith, I consider worth
more to me and to the world,' Dick told him, ' than
the whole body of this woman's husband. Here's
the report on him: willing, eager to please, not
bright, not strong, an indifferent workman at best.
Yet you have to go down the hill, and I am very,
very sorry.'
" Oh, yes , there was more. But I've given you
the main of it. You see Dick's code there. And
he lives his code. He accords latitude to the in-
dividual. Whatever the individual may do, so long
as it does not hurt the group of individuals in which
he lives, is his own affair. He believed Smith had
a perfect right to love the woman, and to be loved by
her if it came to that. I have heard him always say
that love could not be held nor enforced. Truly,
did I go with you, he would say, ' Bless you, my
children.' Though it broke his heart he would say
it. Past love, he believes, gives no hold over the
present. And every hour of love, I have heard him
say, pays for itself, on both sides, quittance in full.
He claims there can be no such thing as a love-debt,
laughs at the absurdity of love-claims. "
" And I agree with him," Graham said. " You
promised to love me always,' says the jilted one,
and then strives to collect as if it were a promissory
320 THE LITTLE LADY

note for so many dollars. Dollars are dollars, but

love lives or dies. When it is dead how can it be
collected ? We are all agreed, and the way is sim-
ple. We love. It is enough. Why delay another
minute ?"
His fingers strayed along her fingers on the key-
board as he bent to her, first kissing her hair, then
slowly turning her face up to his and kissing her will-
ing lips.
" Dick does not love me like you," she said; " not
madly, I mean. He has had me so long, I think I
have become a habit to him. And often and often,
before I knew you, I used to puzzle whether he
cared more for the ranch or more for me."
" It is so simple," Graham urged. " All we have
to do is to be straightforward. Let us go."
He drew her to her feet and made as if to start.
But she drew away from him suddenly, sat down,
and buried her flushed face in her hands.
" You do not understand, Evan. I love Dick.
I shall always love him."
" And me ? " Graham demanded sharply.
" Oh, without saying," she smiled. " You are
the only man, besides Dick, that has ever kissed me
this ... way, and that I have kissed this way.
But I can't make up my mind. The triangle, as you
call it, must be solved for me. I can't solve it my-
self. I compare the two of you, weigh you, measure
you. I remember Dick and all our past years. And
I consult my heart for you. And I don't know. I
don't know. You are a great man, my great lover.
But Dick is a greater man than you. You —
you
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 321

are more clay, more— I grope to describe you—

more human, I fancy. And that is why I love you
more •
or at least I think perhaps I do .
..

" But wait," she resisted him, prisoning his eager

hand in hers. " There is more I want to say. I
remember Dick and all our past years. But I re-
member him to-day, as well, and to-morrow. I can-
not bear the thought that any man should pity my
husband, that you should pity him, and pity him
you must when I confess that I love you more.
That is why I am not sure. That is why I so quickly
take it back and do not know.
" I'd die of shame if through act of mine any man
pitied Dick. Truly, I would. Of all things
ghastly, I can think of none so ghastly as Dick be-
ing pitied. He has never been pitied in his life.
He has always been top-dog-bright, light, strong,
unassailable. And more, he doesn't deserve pity.
And it's my fault . ..
and yours, Evan."
She abruptly thrust Evan's hand away.
" And every act, every permitted touch of you,
does make him pitiable. Don't you see how tangled
it is for me? And then there is my own pride.
That you should see me disloyal to him in little
things, such as this " ( she caught his hand
again and caressed it with soft finger-tips)
"-hurts me in my love for you, diminishes me,
must diminish me in your eyes. I shrink from the
thought that my disloyalty to him in this I do —"
(she laid his hand against her cheek) "- gives
you reason to pity him and censure me."
She soothed the impatience of the hand on her
322 THE LITTLE LADY

cheek, and, almost absently, musingly scrutinizing it

without consciously seeing it, turned it over and
slowly kissed the palm. The next moment she was
drawn to her feet and into his arms.
" There, you see," was her reproach as she dis-
engaged herself.

" Why do you tell me all this about Dick ? "

Graham demanded another time, as they walked
their horses side by side. " To keep me away?
To protect yourself from me ? "
Paula nodded, then quickly added, " No, not quite
that. Because you know I don't want to keep you
away •

too far. I say it because Dick is so

.

much in my mind. For twelve years, you realize,

he filled my mind. I say it because because I
•

think it, I suppose. Think ! The situation ! You

are trespassing on a perfect marriage."
" I know it," he answered. " And I do not like
the role of trespasser. It is your insistence, instead
of going away with me, that I should trespass. And
I can't help it. I think away from you, try to force
my thoughts elsewhere. I did half a chapter this
morning, and I know it's rotten and will have to be
rewritten. For I can't succeed in thinking away
from you. What is South America and its eth-
nology compared to you ? And when I come near
you my arms go about you before I know what I am
doing. And, by God, you want them there, you
want them there, you know it."
Paula gathered her reins in signal for a gallop,
but first, with a roguish smile, she acknowledged.
" I do want them there, dear trespasser. "
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 323

Paula yielded and fought at the same time.

" I love my husband — never forget that," she
would warn Graham, and within the minute be in
his arms.

" There are only the three of us for once, thank

goodness, " Paula cried, seizing Dick and Graham
by the hands and leading them toward Dick's fav-
orite lounging couch in the big room. " Come, let
us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the
deaths of kings. Come, milords, and lordly per-
ishers, and we will talk of Armageddon when the last
sun goes down. "
She was in a merry mood, and with surprise Dick
observed her light a cigarette. He could count on
his fingers the cigarettes she had smoked in a dozen
years, and then, only under a hostess's provocation
to give countenance to some smoking woman guest.
Later, when he mixed a highball for himself and
Graham, she again surprised him by asking him to
mix her a " wee " one.
" This is Scotch," he warned.
" Oh, a very wee one," she insisted, " and then
we'll be three good fellows together, winding up
the world. And when you've got it all wound up
and ready, I'll sing you the song of the Valkyries. "
She took more part in the talk than usual, and
strove to draw her husband out. Nor was Dick
unaware of this, although he yielded and permitted
himself to let go full tilt on the theme of the blond
sun-perishers .
She is trying to make him compete — was
Graham's thought. But Paula scarcely thought of
324 THE LITTLE LADY

that phase of it, her pleasure consisting in the spec-

tacle of two such splendid men who were hers.
They talk of big game hunting, she mused once to
herself; but did ever one small woman capture bigger
game than this ?
She sat cross-legged on the couch, where, by a
turn of the head, she could view Graham lounging
comfortably in the big chair, or Dick, on his elbow,
sprawled among the cushions. And ever, as they
talked, her eyes roved from one to the other ; and, as
they spoke of struggle and battle, always in the cold
iron terms of realists, her own thoughts became so
colored, until she could look coolly at Dick with no
further urge of the pity that had intermittently ached
her heart for days.
She was proud of him— a goodly, eye-filling
figure of a man to any woman; but she no longer felt
sorry for him. They were right. It was a game.
The race was to the swift, the battle to the strong.
They had run such races, fought such battles. Then
why not she ? And as she continued to look, that
self-query became reiterant.
They were not anchorites, these two men. Lib-
eral-lived they must have been in that past out of
which, like mysteries, they had come to her. They
had had the days and nights that women were de-
nied — women such as she. As for Dick, beyond all
doubt— even had she heard whispers — there had
been other women in that wild career of his over the
world. Men were men, and they were two such
men. She felt a burn of jealousy against those un-
known women who must have been, and her heart
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 325

hardened. They had taken their fun where they

found it— Kipling's line ran through her head.
Pity ? Why should she pity, any more than she
should be pitied ? The whole thing was too big, too
natural, for pity. They were taking a hand in a
big game, and all could not be winners. Playing
with the fancy, she wandered on to a consideration
of the outcome. Always she had avoided such con-
sideration, but the tiny highball had given her dar-
ing. It came to her that she saw doom ahead, doom
vague and formless but terrible.
She was brought back to herself by Dick's hand
before her eyes and apparently plucking from the
empty air the something upon which she steadfastly
stared.
66

Seeing things ? " he teased, as her eyes turned to

meet his.
His were laughing, but she glimpsed in them what,
despite herself, made her veil her own with her long
lashes. He knew. Beyond all possibility of error
she knew now that he knew. That was what she
had seen in his eyes and what had made her veil her
own.

" " Cynthia, Cynthia, I've been a-thinking, " she

gayly hummed to him; and, as he resumed his talk,
she reached and took a sip from his part-empty
glass.
Let come what would, she asserted to herself, she
would play it out. It was all a madness, but it was
life, it was living. She had never so lived before,
and it was worth it, no matter what inevitable pay-
ment must be made in the end. Love ? -

had she
 326 THE LITTLE LADY

ever really loved Dick as she now felt herself capable

of loving ? Had she mistaken the fondness of affec-
tion for love all these years ? Her eyes warmed as
they rested on Graham, and she admitted that he
had swept her as Dick never had.
Unused to alcohol in such strength, her heart
was accelerated; and Dick, with casual glances, noted
and knew the cause of the added brilliance, the
flushed vividness of cheeks and lips.
He talked less and less, and the discussion of the
sun-perishers died of mutual agreement as to its
facts. Finally, glancing at his watch, he straight-
ened up, yawned, stretched his arms and announced :
" Bed-time he stop. Head belong this fellow
white man too much sleepy along him.- Night-
cap, Evan ? "
Graham nodded, for both felt the need of a stif-
fener.
" Mrs. Toper — nightcap ? " Dick queried of
Paula.
But she shook her head and busied herself at the
piano putting away the music, while the men had
their drink.
Graham closed down the piano for her, while
Dick waited in the doorway, so that when they left
he led them by a dozen feet. As they came along,
Graham, under her instructions, turned off the lights
in the halls. Dick waited where the ways diverged
and where Graham would have to say good night
on his way to the tower room.
The one remaining light was turned off.
" Oh, not that one, silly," Dick heard Paula cry
out. " We keep it on all night."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 327

Dick heard nothing, but the dark was fervent to

him. He cursed himself for his own past embraces
in the dark, for so the wisdom was given him to
know the quick embrace that had occurred, ere, the
next moment, the light flashed on again.
He found himself lacking the courage to look
at their faces as they came toward him. He did not
want to see Paula's frank eyes veiled by her lashes,
and he fumbled to light a cigarette while he cudgeled
his wits for the wording of an ordinary good night.
" How goes the book ? — what chapter ? " he
called after Graham down his hall, as Paula put her
hand in his.
Her hand in his, swinging his, hopping and skip-
ping and all a-chatter in simulation of a little girl
with a grown-up, Paula went on with Dick ; while
he sadly pondered what ruse she had in mind by
which to avoid the long-avoided, good night kiss.
Evidently she had not found it when they reached
the dividing of the ways that led to her quarters and
to his. Still swinging his hand, still buoyantly chat-
tering fun, she continued with him into his work-
room. Here he surrendered. He had neither
heart nor energy to wait for her to develop whatever
she contemplated.
He feigned sudden recollection, deflected her by
the hand to his desk, and picked up a letter.
" I'd promised myself to get a reply off on the
first machine in the morning," he explained, as he
pressed on the phonograph and began dictating.
For a paragraph she still held his hand. Then
he felt the parting pressure of her fingers and her
whispered good night.
328 THE LITTLE LADY

" Good night, little woman," he answered me-

chanically, and continued dictating as if oblivious to
her going.
Nor did he cease until he knew she was well out
of hearing.
 CHAPTER XXVIII

DOZEN times that morning, dictating to

A Blake or indicating answers, Dick had been
on the verge of saying to let the rest of the
correspondence go .
" Call up Hennessy and Mendenhall," he told
Blake, when, at ten, the latter gathered up his notes
and rose to go. " You ought to catch them at the
stallion barn. Tell them not to come this morning
but to-morrow morning."
Bonbright entered, prepared to shorthand Dick's
conversations with his managers for the next hour.
" And- oh, Mr. Blake," Dick called. " Ask
Hennessy about Alden Bessie.— The old mare was
pretty bad last night," he explained to Bonbright.
" Mr. Hanley must see you right away, Mr. For-
rest, " Bonbright said, and added, at sight of the
irritated drawing up of his employer's brows, " It's
the piping from Buckeye Dam. Something's wrong
with the plans — a serious mistake, he says."
Dick surrendered, and for an hour discussed ranch
business with his foremen and managers.
Once, in the middle of a hot discussion over sheep-
dips with Wardman, he left his desk and paced over
to the window. The sound of voices and horses,
and of Paula's laugh, had attracted him.
" Take that Montana report — I'll send you a
329
330 THE LITTLE LADY

copy to-day," he continued, as he gazed out.

66
They found the formula didn't get down to it. It
was more a sedative than a germicide. There
wasn't enough kick in it ..."
Four horses, bunched, crossed his field of vision.
Paula, teasing the pair of them, was between
Martinez and Froelig, old friends of Dick, a painter
and sculptor respectively, who had arrived on an
early train. Graham, on Selim, made the fourth,
and was slightly edged toward the rear. So the
party went by, but Dick reflected that quickly enough
it would resolve itself into two and two.
Shortly after eleven, restless and moody, he wan-
dered out with a cigarette into the big patio, where
he smiled grim amusement at the various tell-tale
signs of Paula's neglect of her goldfish. The sight
of them suggested her secret patio in whose fountain
pools she kept her selected and more gorgeous
blooms of fish. Thither he went, through doors
without knobs, by ways known only to Paula and the
servants .
This had been Dick's one great gift to Paula. It
was love-lavish as only a king of fortune could make
it. He had given her a free hand with it, and in-
sisted on her wildest extravagance ; and it had been
his delight to tease his quondam guardians with the
stubs of the checkbook she had used. It bore no
relation to the scheme and architecture of the Big
House, and, for that matter, so deeply hidden was it
that it played no part in jar of line or color. A
show-place of show-places, it was not often shown.
Outside Paula's sisters and intimates, on rare oc-
casions some artist was permitted to enter and catch
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 331

his breath. Graham had heard of its existence, but

not even him had she invited to see.
It was round, and small enough to escape giving
any cold hint of spaciousness. The Big House was
of sturdy concrete, but here was marble in exquisite
delicacy. The arches of the encircling arcade were
of fretted white marble that had taken on just
enough tender green to prevent any glare of reflected
light. Palest of pink roses bloomed up the pillars
and over the low flat roof they upheld, where Puck-
like, humorous, and happy faces took the place of
grinning gargoyles. Dick strolled the rosy marble
pavement of the arcade and let the beauty of
the place slowly steal in upon him and gentle his
mood.
The heart and key of the fairy patio was the
fountain, consisting of three related shallow basins
at different levels, of white marble and delicate as
shell. Over these basins rollicked and frolicked life-
sized babies wrought from pink marble by no mean
hand. Some peered over the edges into lower
basins, one reached arms covetously toward the gold-
fish; one, on his back, laughed at the sky, another
stood with dimpled legs apart stretching himself,
others waded, others were on the ground amongst
the roses white and blush, but all were of the foun-
tain and touched it at some point. So good was the
color of the marble, so true had been the sculptor,
that the illusion was of life. No cherubs these, but
live warm human babies .
Dick regarded the rosy fellowship pleasantly and
long, finishing his cigarette and retaining it dead in
his hand. That was what she had needed, he
332 THE LITTLE LADY

mused-babies, children. It hadbeenherpassion.

Had she realized it ... He sighed, and, struck
by a fresh thought, looked to her favorite seat with
certitude that he would not see the customary sew-
ing lying on it in a pretty heap. She did not sew
these days.
He did not enter the tiny gallery behind the ar-
cade, which contained her chosen paintings and etch-
ings, and copies in marble and bronze of her favor-
ites of the European galleries. Instead he went up
the stairway, past the glorious Winged Victory on
the landing where the staircase divided, and on and
up into her quarters that occupied the entire upper
wing. But first, pausing by the Victory, he turned
and gazed down into the fairy patio. The thing
was a cut jewel in its perfectness and color, and he
acknowledged, although he had made it possible for
her, that it was entirely her own creation her one
-

masterpiece. It had long been her dream, and he

had realized it for her. And yet now, he meditated,
it meant nothing to her. She was not mercenary,
that he knew; and if he could not hold her, mere
baubles such as that would weigh nothing in the bal-
ance against her heart.
He wandered idly through her rooms, scarcely
noting at what he gazed, but gazing with fondness
at it all. Like everything else of hers, it was dis-
tinctive, different, eloquent of her. But when he
glanced into the bathroom with its sunken Roman
bath, for the life of him he was unable to avoid see-
ing a tiny drip and making a mental note for the
ranch plumber.
As a matter of course, he looked to her easel with
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 333

the expectation of finding no new work, but was dis-

appointed ; for a portrait of himself confronted him.
He knew her trick of copying the pose and lines from
a photograph and filling in from memory. The par-
ticular photograph she was using had been a for-
tunate snapshop of him on horseback. The Out-
law, for once and for a moment, had been at peace,
and Dick, hat in hand, hair just nicely rumpled, face
in repose, unaware of the impending snap, had at
the instant looked squarely into the camera. No
portrait photographer could have caught a better
likeness. The head and shoulders Paula had had
enlarged, and it was from this that she was working.
But the portrait had already gone beyond the photo-
graph, for Dick could see her own touches .
With a start he looked more closely. Was that
expression of the eyes, of the whole face, his ? He
glanced at the photograph. It was not there. He
walked over to one of the mirrors, relaxed his face,
and led his thoughts to Paula and Graham. Slowly
the expression came into his eyes and face. Not
content, he returned to the easel and verified it.
Paula knew. Paula knew that he knew. She had
learned it from him, stolen it from him some time
when it was unwittingly on his face, and carried it in
her memory to the canvas.
Paula's Chinese maid, Oh Dear, entered from the
wardrobe room, and Dick watched her unobserved
as she came down the room toward him. Her eyes
were down, and she seemed deep in thought. Dick
remarked the sadness of her face, and that the little,
solicitous contraction of the brows that had led to
her naming was gone. She was not solicitous, that
 334 THE LITTLE LADY

was patent. But cast down, she was, in heavy de-

pression.
It would seem that all our faces are beginning to
say things, he commented to himself.
" Good morning, Oh Dear," he startled her.
And as she returned the greeting, he saw compas-
sion in her eyes as they dwelt on him. She knew.
The first outside themselves. Trust her, a woman,
so much in Paula's company when Paula was alone,
to divine Paula's secret.
Oh Dear's lips trembled, and she wrung her
trembling hands, nerving herself, as he could see, to
speech.
" Mister Forrest," she began haltingly, " maybe
you think me fool, but I like say something. You
very kind man. You very kind my old mother.
You very kind me long long time ..."
She hesitated, moistening her frightened lips with
her tongue, then braved her eyes to his and pro-
ceeded.
" Mrs. Forrest, she, I think ..."
But so forbidding did Dick's face become that she
broke off in confusion and blushed, as Dick sur-
mised, with shame at the thoughts she had been
1 about to utter.
" Very nice picture Mrs. Forrest make," he put
her at her ease .
The Chinese girl sighed, and the same compas-
sion returned into her eyes as she looked long at
Dick's portrait.
She sighed again, but the coldness in her voice
was not lost on Dick as she answered : " Yes, very
nice picture Mrs. Forrest make. "
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 335

She looked at him with sudden sharp scrutiny,

studying his face, then turned to the canvas and
pointed at the eyes.
" No good," she condemned.
Her voice was harsh, touched with anger.
" No good," she flung over her shoulder, more
loudly, still more harshly, as she continued down
the room and out of sight on Paula's sleeping porch.
Dick stiffened his shoulders, unconsciously brac-
ing himself to face what was now soon to happen.
Well, it was the beginning of the end. Oh Dear
knew. Soon more would know, all would know.
And in a way he was glad of it, glad that the torment
of suspense would endure but little longer.
But when he started to leave he whistled a merry
jingle to advertise to Oh Dear that the world
wagged very well with him so far as he knew any-
thing about it.

The same afternoon, while Dick was out and away

with Froelig and Martinez and Graham, Paula
stole a pilgrimage to Dick's quarters. Out on his
sleeping porch she looked over his rows of press
buttons, his switchboard that from his bed connected
him with every part of the ranch and most of the
rest of California, his phonograph on the hinged and
swinging bracket, the orderly array of books and
magazines and agricultural bulletins waiting to be
read, the ash tray, cigarettes, scribble pads, and
thermos bottle .
Her photograph, the only picture on the porch,
held her attention. It hung under his barometers
and thermometers, which, she knew, was where he
336 THE LITTLE LADY

looked oftenest. A fancy came to her, and she

turned the laughing face to the wall and glanced
from the blankness of the back of the frame to the
bed and back again. With a quick panic movement,
she turned the laughing face out. It belonged, was
her thought; it did belong.
The big automatic pistol in the holster on the
wall, handy to one's hand from the bed, caught her
eye. She reached to it and lifted gently at the butt.
It was as she had expected — loose Dick's way.
-

Trust him, no matter how long unused, never to let

a pistol freeze in its holster.
Back in the work room she wandered solemnly
about, glancing now at the prodigious filing system,
at the chart and blue-print cabinets, at the revolving
shelves of reference books, and at the long rows of
stoutly bound herd registers. At last she came to
hisbooks — a goodly row of pamphlets, bound mag-
azine articles, and an even dozen ambitious
tomes. She read the titles painstakingly : " Corn
in California, " " Silage Practice," " Farm Organiza-
tion, " Farm Book-keeping," " The Shire in Amer-
ica," " Humus Destruction," " Soilage," " Alfalfa
in California," " Cover Crops for California,"
" The Shorthorn in America " —at this last she
smiled affectionately with memory of the great con-
troversy he had waged for the beef cow and the
milch cow as against the dual purpose cow.
She caressed the backs of the books with her
palm, pressed her cheek against them and leaned
with closed eyes. Oh, Dick, Dick— a thought be-
gan that faded to a vagueness of sorrow and died
because she did not dare to think it.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 337

The desk was so typically Dick. There was no

litter. Clean it was of all work save the wire tray
with typed letters waiting his signature and an un-
usual pile of the flat yellow sheets on which his sec-
retaries typed the telegrams relayed by telephone
from Eldorado. Carelessly she ran her eyes over
the opening lines of the uppermost sheet and
chanced upon a reference that puzzled and interested
her. She read closely, with in-drawn brows, then
went deeper into the heap till she found confirma-
tion. Jeremy Braxton was dead—big, genial,
kindly Jeremy Braxton. A Mexican mob of pulque-
crazed peons had killed him in the mountains
through which he had been trying to escape from the
Harvest into Arizona. The date of the telegram
was two days old. Dick had known it for two days
and never worried her with it. And it meant more.
It meant money. It meant that the affairs of the
Harvest Group were going from bad to worse.
And it was Dick's way.
And Jeremy was dead. The room seemed sud-
denly to have grown cold. She shivered. It was
the way of life death always at the end of the
-

road. And her own nameless dread came back upon

her. Doom lay ahead. Doom for whom ? She
did not attempt to guess. Sufficient that it was
doom. Her mind was heavy with it, and the quiet
room was heavy with it as she passed slowly out.
 CHAPTER XXIX

IS a birdlike sensuousness that is all the

“ T Little Lady's own," Terrence was saying,
as he helped himself to a cocktail from
the tray Ah Ha was passing around.
It was the hour before dinner, and Graham, Leo
and Terrence McFane had chanced together in the
stag-room.
" No, Leo," the Irishman warned the young poet.
" Let the one suffice you. Your cheeks are warm
with it. A second one and you'll conflagrate. 'Tis
no right you have to be mixing beauty and strong
drink in that lad's head of yours. Leave the drink
to your elders. There is such a thing as con-
sanguinity for drink. You have it not. As for
me -"
He emptied the glass and paused to turn the cock-
tail reminiscently on his tongue.
" 'Tis women's drink," he shook his head in con-
demnation. " It likes me not. It bites me not.
And devil a bit of a taste is there to it.
- Ah Ha,
my boy," he called to the Chinese, " mix me a high-
ball in a long, long glass — a stiff one. "
He held up four fingers horizontally to indicate
the measure of liquor he would have in the glass,
and, to Ah Ha's query as to what kind of whiskey,
answered, " Scotch or Irish, bourbon or rye
whichever comes nearest to hand."
Graham shook his head to the Chinese, and
338
 THE LITTLE LADY 339

laughed to the Irishman. " You'll never drink me

down, Terrence. I've not forgotten what you did
to O'Hay. "
" 'Twas an accident I would have you think,"
66

was the reply. They say when a man's not feel-

ing any too fit a bit of drink will hit him like a club."
" And you ? " Graham questioned.
" Have never been hit by a club. I am a man of
singularly few experiences."
" But, Terrence, you were saying . about
..

Mrs. Forrest ? " Leo begged. " It sounded as if it

were going to be nice."
" As if it could be otherwise," Terrence censured.
" But as I was saying, ' tis a bird-like sensuousness —
oh, not the little, hoppy, wagtail kind, nor yet the
sleek and solemn dove, but a merry sort of bird, like
the wild canaries you see bathing in the fountains,
always twittering and singing, flinging the water in
the sun, and glowing the golden hearts of them on
their happy breasts. 'Tis like that the Little Lady
is. I have observed her much.
" Everything on the earth and under the earth
and in the sky contributes to the passion of her days
—

the untoward purple of the ground myrtle when

it has no right to aught more than pale lavender, a
single red rose tossing in the bathing wind, one per-
fect Duchesse rose bursting from its bush into the
sunshine, as she said to me, ' pink as the dawn, Ter-
rence, and shaped like a kiss.'
" 'Tis all one with her — the Princess's silver
neigh, the sheep bells of a frosty morn, the pretty
Angora goats making silky pictures on the hillside
all day long, the drifts of purple lupins along the
 340 THE LITTLE LADY
:
fences, the long hot grass on slope and roadside, the
summer-burnt hills tawny as crouching lions and
-

even have I seen the sheer sensuous pleasure of the

Little Lady with bathing her arms and neck in the
blessed sun."
" She is the soul of beauty," Leo murmured.
" One understands how men can die for women
: such as she."
" And how men can live for them, and love them,
the lovely things," Terrence added. " Listen, Mr.
Graham, and I'll tell you a secret. We philosophers
of the madrono grove, we wrecks and wastages of
life here in the quiet backwater and easement of
Dick's munificence, are a brotherhood of lovers.
And the lady of our hearts is all the one — the Lit-
tle Lady. We, who merely talk and dream our days
away, and who would lift never a hand for God,
or country, or the devil, are pledged knights of the
Little Lady."
" We would die for her," Leo affirmed, slowly
nodding his head.
" Nay, lad, we would live for her and fight for
her, dying is that easy."
Graham missed nothing of it. The boy did not
understand, but in the blue eyes of the Celt, peering
from under the mop of iron-gray hair, there was no
mistaking the knowledge of the situation.
Voices of men were heard coming down the stairs,
and, as Martinez and Dar Hyal entered, Terrence
was saying:
" 'Tis fine weather they say they're having down
at Catalina now, and I hear the tunny fish are biting
splendid."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 341

Ah Ha served cocktails around, and was kept

busy, for Hancock and Froelig followed along.
Terrence impartially drank stiff highballs of what-
ever liquor the immobile-faced Chinese elected to
serve him, and discoursed fatherly to Leo on the
iniquities and abominations of the flowing bowl.
Oh My entered, a folded note in his hand, and
looked about in doubt as to whom to give it.
" Hither, wing-heeled Celestial, " Terrence waved
him up.
" 'Tis a petition, couched in very proper terms,"
Terrence explained, after a glance at its contents.
" And Ernestine and Lute have arrived, for 'tis they
that petition. Listen." And he read : " Oh,
noble and glorious stags , two poor and lowly meek-
eyed does, wandering lonely in the forest, do humbly
entreat admission for the brief time before dinner
to the stamping ground of the herd.'
" The metaphor is mixed," said Terrence. " Yet
have they acted well. 'Tis the rule Dick's rule
— and a good rule it is: no petticoats in the stag-
room save by the stags' unanimous consent.- Is
the herd ready for the question? All those in favor
will say ' Aye.'- Contrary minded ?— The ayes
have it.
" Oh My, fleet with thy heels and bring in the
ladies ."
"" With sandals beaten from the crowns of
kings, " Leo added, murmuring the words rever-
ently, loving them with his lips as his lips formed
them and uttered them .
"" Shall he tread down the altars of their night, ' "
Terrence completed the passage. " The man who
342 THE LITTLE LADY

wrote that is a great man. He is Leo's friend, and

Dick's friend, and proud am I that he is my friend."
" And that other line," Leo said. " From the
same sonnet, " he explained to Graham. " Listen
to the sound of it : ' To hear what song the star of
morning sings '— oh, listen," the boy went on, his
voice hushed low with beauty-love for the words :
" " With perished beauty in his hands as clay, Shall
he restore futurity its dream — "
He broke off as Paula's sisters entered, and rose
shyly to greet them.

Dinner that night was as any dinner at which the

madrono sages were present. Dick was as robustly
controversial as usual, locking horns with Aaron
Hancock on Bergson, attacking the latter's meta-
physics in sharp realistic fashion.
" Your Bergson is a
charlatan philosopher,
Aaron, " Dick concluded. " He has the same old
medicine-man's bag of metaphysical tricks, all decked
out and frilled with the latest ascertained facts of
science ."
" 'Tis true, " Terrence agreed. "Bergson is a
charlatan thinker. 'Tis why he is so popular—"
" I deny —" Hancock broke in.
" Wait a wee, Aaron. 'Tis a thought I have
glimmered. Let me catch it before it flutters away
into the azure. Dick's caught Bergson with the
goods on him, filched straight from the treasure-
house of science. His very cocksureness is filched
from Darwin's morality of strength based on the sur-
vival of the fittest. And what did Bergson do with
it ? Touched it up with a bit of James' prag-
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 343

matism, rosied it over with the eternal hope in man's

breast that he will live again, and made it all a-shine
,,,
with Nietzsche's ' nothing succeeds like excess
" Wilde's, you mean," corrected Ernestine.
" Heaven knows I should have filched it for my-
self had you not been present," Terrence sighed,
with a bow to her. " Some day the antiquarians
will decide the authorship. Personally I would say
it smacked of Methuselah But as I was saying,
before I was delightfully interrupted ... "
" Who more cocksure than Dick? " Aaron was
challenging a little later; while Paula glanced signifi-
cantly to Graham .
" I was looking at the herd of yearling stallions
but yesterday," Terrence replied, " and with the
picture of the splendid beasties still in my eyes I'll
ask : And who more delivers the goods ? "
" But Hancock's objection is solid," Martinez ven-
tured. " It would be a mean and profitless world
without mystery. Dick sees no mystery."
" There you wrong him," Terrence defended.
" I know him well. Dick recognizes mystery, but
not of the nursery-child variety. No cock-and-bull
stories for him, such as you romanticists luxuriate
in."
" Terrence gets me," Dick nodded. " The world
will always be mystery. To me man's conscious-
ness is no greater mystery than the reaction of the
gases that make a simple drop of water. Grant
that mystery, and all the more complicated phenom-
ena cease to be mysteries. That simple chemical
reaction is like one of the axioms on which the edifice
of geometry is reared. Matter and force are the
344 THE LITTLE LADY

everlasting mysteries, manifesting themselves in the

twin mysteries of space and time. The manifesta-
tions are not mysteries — only the stuff of the mani-
festations, matter and force ; and the theater of the
manifestations, space and time."
Dick ceased and idly watched the expressionless
Ah Ha and Ah Me who chanced at the moment to
be serving opposite him. Their faces did not talk,
was his thought; although ten to one was a fair bet
that they were informed with the same knowledge
that had perturbed Oh Dear.
" And there you are," Terrence was triumphing.
" 'Tis the perfect joy of him
-

never up in the air

with dizzy heels. Flat on the good ground he
stands, four square to fact and law, set against all
airy fancies and bubbly speculations...."
And as at table, so afterward that evening no one
could have guessed from Dick that all was not well
with him. He seemed bent on celebrating Lute's
and Ernestine's return, refused to tolerate the heavy
talk of the philosophers, and bubbled over with
pranks and tricks. Paula yielded to the contagion,
and aided and abetted him in his practical jokes
which none escaped.
Choicest among these was the kiss of welcome.
No man escaped it. To Graham was accorded the
honor of receiving it first so that he might witness
the discomfiture of the others, who, one by one, were
ushered in by Dick from the patio.
Hancock, Dick's arm guiding him, came down the
room to confront Paula and her sisters standing in
a row on three chairs in the middle of the floor. He
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 345

scanned them suspiciously, and insisted upon walk-

ing around behind them. But there seemed noth-
ing unusual about them save that each wore a man's
felt hat.
" Looks good to me," Hancock announced, as he
stood on the floor before them and looked up at
them.
" And it is good," Dick assured him. " As rep-
resenting the ranch in its fairest aspects, they are to
administer the kiss of welcome. Make your choice,
Aaron."
Aaron, with a quick whirl to catch some possible
lurking disaster at his back, demanded, " They are
all three to kiss me ? "
" No, make your choice which is to give you the
kiss."
" The two I do not choose will not feel that I have
discriminated against them?" Aaron insisted.
66
Whiskers no objection ? " was his next query.
" Not in the way at all," Lute told him. " I have
always wondered what it would be like to kiss black
whiskers."
" Here's where all the philosophers get kissed to-
night, so hurry up," Ernestine said. " The others
are waiting. I, too, have yet to be kissed by an
alfalfa field."
" Whom do you choose ? " Dick urged.
" As if, after that, there were any choice about it, "
Hancock returned jauntily, " I kiss my lady the
Little Lady."
As he put up his lips, Paula bent her head for-
ward, and, nicely directed, from the indented crown
of her hat canted a glassful of water into his face.
346 THE LITTLE LADY

When Leo's turn came, he bravely made his choice

of Paula and nearly spoiled the show by reverently
bending and kissing the hem of her gown.
" It will never do," Ernestine told him. " It
must be a real kiss. Put up your lips to be kissed."
" Let the last be first and kiss me, Leo," Lute
begged, to save him from his embarrassment.
He looked his gratitude, put up his lips, but with-
out enough tilt of his head, so that he received the
water from Lute's hat down the back of his neck.
" All three shall kiss me and thus shall paradise be
thrice multiplied," was Terrence's way out of the
difficulty; and simultaneously he received three
crowns of water for his gallantry.
Dick's boisterousness waxed apace. His was the
most care-free seeming in the world as he measured
Froelig and Martinez against the door to settle the
dispute that had arisen as to whether Froelig or
Martinez was the taller.
" Knees straight and together, heads back," Dick
commanded.
And as their heads touched the wood, from the
other side came a rousing thump that jarred them.
The door swung open, revealing Ernestine with a
padded gong-stick in either hand.
Dick, a high-heeled satin slipper in his hand, was
under a sheet with Terrence, teaching him " Brother
Bob I'm bobbed " to the uproarious joy of the
others, when the Masons and Watsons and all their
Wickenberg following entered upon the scene.
Whereupon Dick insisted that the young men of
their party receive the kiss of welcome. Nor did he
miss, in the hubbub of a dozen persons meeting as
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 347

many more, Lottie Mason's : " Oh, good evening,

Mr. Graham. I thought you had gone."
And Dick, in the midst of the confusion of set-
tling such an influx of guests, still maintaining his ex-
uberant jolly pose, waited for that sharp scrutiny
that women have only for women. Not many mo-
ments later he saw Lottie Mason steal such a look,
keen with speculation, at Paula as she chanced face
to face with Graham, saying something to him.
Not yet, was Dick's conclusion. Lottie did not
know. But suspicion was rife, and nothing, he was
certain, under the circumstances, would gladden her
woman's heart more than to discover the unimpeach-
able Paula as womanly weak as herself.
Lottie Mason was a tall, striking brunette of
twenty-five, undeniably beautiful, and, as Dick had
learned, undeniably daring. In the not remote past,
attracted by her, and, it must be submitted, subtly in-
vited by her, he had been guilty of a philandering
that he had not allowed to go as far as her wishes.
The thing had not been serious on his part. Nor
had he permitted it to become serious on her side.
Nevertheless, sufficient flirtatious passages had taken
place to impel him this night to look to her, rather
than to the other Wickenberg women, for the first
signals of suspicion.
" Oh, yes, he's a beautiful dancer," Dick, as he
came up to them half an hour later, heard Lottie
Mason telling little Miss Maxwell. " Isn't he,
Dick ? " she appealed to him, with innocent eyes of
candor through which disguise he knew she was
studying him.
" Who ? — Graham, you must mean," he an
348 THE LITTLE LADY

swered with untroubled directness. " He certainly

is. What do you say we start dancing and let Miss
Maxwell see ? Though there's only one woman here
who can give him full swing to show his paces."
" Paula, of course," said Lottie.
" Paula, of course. Why, you young chits don't
know how to waltz. You never had a chance to
learn."— Lottie tossed her fine head. " Perhaps
you learned a little before the new dancing came in,"
he amended. " Anyway, I'll get Evan and Paula
started, you take me on, and I'll wager we'll be the
only couples on the floor."
Half through the waltz, he broke it off with :
" Let them have the floor to themselves. It's worth
seeing."
And, glowing with appreciation, he stood and
watched his wife and Graham finish the dance, while
he knew that Lottie, beside him, stealing side glances
at him, was having her suspicions allayed.
The dancing became general, and, the evening
being warm, the big doors to the patio were thrown
open. Now one couple, and now another, danced
out and down the long arcades where the moonlight
streamed, until it became the general thing.
" What a boy he is," Paula said to Graham, as
they listened to Dick descanting to all and sundry
on the virtues of his new night camera. " You

heard Aaron complaining at table, and Terrence ex-

plaining, his sureness. Nothing terrible has ever
happened to him in his life. He has never been
overthrown. His sureness has always been vindi-
cated. As Terrence said, it has always delivered
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 349

the goods. He does know, he does know, and yet

he is so sure of himself, so sure of me."
Graham taken away to dance with Miss Max-
well, Paula continued her train of thought to her-
self. Dick was not suffering so much after all.
And she might have expected it. He was the cool-
head, the philosopher. He would take her loss with
the same equanimity as he would take the loss of
Mountain Lad, as he had taken the death of Jeremy
Braxton and the flooding of the Harvest mines. It
was difficult, she smiled to herself, aflame as she
was toward Graham, to be married to a philosopher
who would not lift a hand to hold her. And it
came to her afresh that one phase of Graham's
charm for her was his humanness, his flamingness .
They met on common ground. At any rate, even
in the heyday of their coming together in Paris,
Dick had not so inflamed her. A wonderful lover
he had been, too, with his gift of speech and lover's
phrases, with his love-chants that had so delighted
her; but somehow it was different from this what she
felt for Graham and what Graham must feel for her.
Besides, she had been most young in experience of
love and lovers in that long ago when Dick had burst
so magnificently upon her.
And so thinking, she hardened toward him and
recklessly permitted herself to flame toward Gra-
ham. The crowd, the gayety, the excitement, the
closeness and tenderness of contact in the dancing,
the summer-warm of the evening, the streaming
moonlight, and the night-scents of flowers — all
fanned her ardency, and she looked forward eagerly
350 THE LITTLE LADY

to the at least one more dance she might dare with

Graham .
" No flash light is necessary," Dick was explain-
ing. " It's a German invention. Half a minute ex-
posure under the ordinary lighting is sufficient. And
the best of it is that the plate can be immediately de-
veloped just like an ordinary blue print. Of course,
the drawback is one cannot print from the plate."
" But if it's good, an ordinary plate can be copied
from it from which prints can be made," Ernestine
amplified.
She knew the huge, twenty-foot, spring snake
coiled inside the camera and ready to leap out like
a jack-in-the-box when Dick squeezed the bulb.
And there were others who knew and who urged
Dick to get the camera and make an exposure.
He was gone longer than he expected, for Bon-
bright had left on his desk several telegrams con-
cerning the Mexican situation that needed immediate
replies. Trick camera in hand, Dick returned by a
short cut across the house and patio. The dancing
couples were ebbing down the arcade and disappear-
ing into the hall, and he leaned against a pillar and
watched them go by. Last of all came Paula and
Evan, passing so close that he could have reached out
and touched them. But, though the moon shone full
on him, they did not see him. They saw only each
other in the tender sport of gazing.
The last preceding couple was already inside when
the music ceased. Graham and Paula paused, and
he was for giving her his arm and leading her inside,
but she clung to him in sudden impulse. Man-like,
cautious, he slightly resisted for a moment, but with
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 351

one arm around his neck she drew his head willingly
down to the kiss. It was a flash of quick passion.
The next instant, Paula on his arm, they were pass-
ing in and Paula's laugh was ringing merrily and
naturally.
Dick clutched at the pillar and eased himself down
abruptly until he sat flat on the pavement. Accom-
panying violent suffocation, or causing it, his heart
seemed rising in his chest. He panted for air. The
cursed thing rose and choked and stifled him un-
til, in the grim turn his fancy took, it seemed to him
that he chewed it between his teeth and gulped it
back and down his throat along with the reviving air.
He felt chilled, and was aware that he was wet with
sudden sweat.
" And who ever heard of heart disease in the For-
rests ? " he muttered, as, still sitting, leaning against
the pillar for support, he mopped his face dry. His
hand was shaking, and he felt a slight nausea from
an internal quivering that still persisted.
It was not as if Graham had kissed her, he pon-
dered. It was Paula who had kissed Graham.
That was love, and passion. He had seen it, and
as it burned again before his eyes, he felt his heart
surge, and the premonitory sensation of suffocation
seized him. With a sharp effort of will he con-
trolled himself and got to his feet.
" By God, it came up in my mouth and I chewed
it," he muttered. " I chewed it. "
Returning across the patio by the round-about
way, he entered the lighted room jauntily enough,
camera in hand, and unprepared for the reception he
received.
352 THE LITTLE LADY

" Seen a ghost ? " Lute greeted.

" Are you sick ? "—" What's the matter? " were
other questions.
" What 15 the matter ? " he countered.
" Your face the look of it, " Ernestine said.
-

" Something has happened. What is it ? "

And while he oriented himself he did not fail to
note Lottie Mason's quick glance at the faces of Gra-
ham and Paula, nor to note that Ernestine had ob-
served Lottie's glance and followed it up for her-
self.
" Yes," he lied. "Bad news. Just got the word.
Jeremy Braxton is dead. Murdered. The Mexi-
cans got him while he was trying to escape into Ari-
zona ."
" Old Jeremy, God love him for the fine man he
was," Terrence said, tucking his arm in Dick's.
" Come on, old man, 'tis a stiffener you're wanting
and I'm the lad to lead you to it. "
" Oh, I'm all right," Dick smiled, shaking his
shoulders and squaring himself as if gathering him-
self together. " It did hit me hard for the moment.
I hadn't a doubt in the world but Jeremy would make
it out all right. But they got him, and two engi-
neers with him. They put up a devil of a fight first.
They got under a cliff and stood off a mob of half
a thousand for a day and night. And then the
Mexicans tossed dynamite down from above. Oh,
well, all flesh is grass, and there is no grass of yes-
teryear. Terrence, your suggestion is a good one.
Lead on."
After a few steps he turned his head over his
shoulder and called back : " Now this isn't to stop
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 353

the fun. I'll be right back to take that photograph.

You arrange the group, Ernestine, and be sure to
have them under the strongest light."
Terrence pressed open the concealed buffet at the
far end of the room and set out the glasses, while
Dick turned on a wall light and studied his face in
the small mirror inside the buffet door.
" It's all right now, quite natural," he announced.
" 'Twas only a passing shade," Terrence agreed,
pouring the whiskey. " And man has well the right
to take it hard the going of old friends."
They toasted and drank silently.
" Another one," Dick said, extending his glass .
66
Say ' when, " said the Irishman, and with im-
perturbable eyes he watched the rising tide of liquor
in the glass .
Dick waited till it was half full.
Again they toasted and drank silently, eyes to eyes,
and Dick was grateful for the offer of all his heart
that he read in Terrence's eyes .
Back in the middle of the hall, Ernestine was gayly
grouping the victims, and privily, from the faces
of Lottie, Paula, and Graham, trying to learn more
of the something untoward that she sensed. Why
had Lottie looked so immediately and searchingly
at Graham and Paula ? -

she asked herself. And

something was wrong with Paula now. She was
worried, disturbed, and not in the way to be ex-
pected from the announcement of Jeremy Braxton's
death. From Graham, Ernestine could glean noth-
ing. He was quite his ordinary self, his facetious-
ness the cause of much laughter to Miss Maxwell
and Mrs. Watson.
354 THE LITTLE LADY

Paula was disturbed. What had happened?

Why had Dick lied? He had known of Jeremy's
death for two days. And she had never known any-
body's death so to affect him. She wondered if he
had been drinking unduly. In the course of their
married life she had seen him several times in liquor.
He carried it well, the only noticeable effects being
a flush in his eyes and a loosening of his tongue to
whimsical fancies and extemporized chants. Had
he, in his trouble, been drinking with the iron-headed
Terrence down in the stag room? She had found
them all assembled there just before dinner. The
real cause for Dick's strangeness never crossed her
mind, if, for no other reason, than that he was not
given to spying.
He came back, laughing heartily at a joke of Ter-
rence's, and beckoned Graham to join them while
Terrence repeated it. And when the three had had
their laugh, he prepared to take the picture. The
burst of the huge snake from the camera and the
genuine screams of the startled women served to dis-
pel the gloom that threatened, and next Dick was
arranging a tournament of peanut-carrying.
From chair to chair, placed a dozen yards apart,
the feat was with a table knife to carry the most
peanuts in five minutes. After the preliminary try-
out, Dick chose Paula for his partner, and chal-
lenged the world, Wickenberg and the madrono
grove included. Many boxes of candy were wa-
gered, and in the end he and Paula won out against
Graham and Ernestine, who had proved the next
best couple. Demands for a speech changed to
clamor for a peanut song. Dick complied, beating
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 355

the accent, Indian fashion, with stiff-legged hops

and hand-slaps on thighs.
" I am Dick Forrest, son of Richard the Lucky,
Son of Jonathan the Puritan, son of John who was
a sea-rover, as his father Albert before him, who
was the son of Mortimer, a pirate who was hanged
in chains and died without issue.
" I am the last of the Forrests, but first of the
peanut-carriers. Neither Nimrod nor Sandow has
anything on me. I carry the peanuts on a knife, a
silver knife. The peanuts are animated by the devil.
I carry the peanuts with grace and celerity and in
quantity. The peanut never sprouted that can best
me .

" The peanuts roll. The peanuts roll. Like At-

las who holds the world, I never let them fall. Not
every one can carry peanuts. I am God-gifted. I
am master of the art. It is a fine art. The peanuts
roll, the peanuts roll, and I carry them on forever.
" Aaron is a philosopher. He cannot carry pea-
nuts. Ernestine is a blonde. She cannot carry
peanuts. Evan is a sportsman. He drops pea-
nuts. Paula is my partner. She fumbles peanuts.
Only I, I, by the grace of God and my own clever-
ness , carry peanuts.
" When anybody has had enough of my song,
throw something at me. I am proud. I am tire-
less. I can sing on forever. I shall sing on for-
ever.

" Here beginneth the second canto. When I die,

bury me in a peanut patch. While I live —"
The expected avalanche of cushions quenched his
song but not his ebullient spirits, for he was soon
 356 THE LITTLE LADY

in a corner with Lottie Mason and Paula concoct-

ing a conspiracy against Terrence.
And so the evening continued to be danced and
joked and played away. At midnight supper was
served, and not till two in the morning were the
Wickenbergers ready to depart. While they were
getting on their wraps, Paula was proposing for the
following afternoon a trip down to the Sacramento
River to look over Dick's experiment in rice-raising.
" I had something else in view," he told her.
" You know the mountain pasture above Sycamore
Creek. Three yearlings have been killed there in
the last ten days."
" Mountain lions ! " Paula cried.
" Two at least.
- Strayed in from the north," he
explained to Graham. " They sometimes do that.
We got three five years ago.- Moss and Hartley
will be there with the dogs waiting. They've lo-
cated two of the beasts. What do you say all of
you join me. We can leave right after lunch."
" Let me have Mollie ? " Lute asked.
" And you can ride Altadena," Paula told Ernes-
tine.
Quickly the mounts were decided upon, Froelig
and Martinez agreeing to go, but promising neither
to shoot well nor ride well .
All went out to see the Wickenbergers off, and,
after the machines were gone, lingered to make ar-
rangements for the hunting.
" Good night, everybody," Dick said, as they
started to move inside. " I'm going to take a look
at Alden Bessie before I turn in. Hennessy is sit-
ting up with her. Remember, you girls, come to
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 357

lunch in your riding togs, and curses on the head of

whoever's late."
The ancient dam of the Fotherington Princess
was in a serious way, but Dick would not have made
the visit at such an hour, save that he wanted to be
by himself and that he could not nerve himself for
a chance moment alone with Paula so soon after
what he had overseen in the patio.
Light steps in the gravel made him turn his head.
Ernestine caught up with him and took his arm.
" Poor old Alden Bessie," she explained, " I
thought I'd go along."
Dick, still acting up to his night's role, recalled
to her various funny incidents of the evening, and
laughed and chuckled with reminiscent glee.
" Dick," she said in the first pause, " you are in
trouble." She could feel him stiffen, and hurried
on: " What can I do ? You know you can depend
on me. Tell me."
" Yes, I'll tell you," he answered. " Just one
thing." She pressed his arm gratefully. " I'll have
a telegram sent you to-morrow. It will be urgent
enough, though not too serious. You will just bun-
dle up and depart with Lute."
" Is that all ? " she faltered.
" It will be a great favor."
" You won't talk with me ? " she protested, quiv-
ering under the rebuff.
" I'll have the telegram come so as to rout you out
of bed. And now never mind Alden Bessie. You
run a long in. Good night."
He kissed her, gently thrust her toward the house,
and went on his way.
 CHAPTER XXX

N the way back from the sick mare, Dick

paused once to listen to the restless stamp of
Mountain Lad and his fellows in the stallion
barn. In the quiet air, from somewhere up the
hills, came the ringing of a single bell from some
grazing animal. A cat's-paw of breeze fanned him
with sudden balmy warmth. All the night was
balmy with the faint and almost aromatic scent of
ripening grain and drying grass. The stallion
stamped again, and Dick, with a deep breath and
realization that never had he more loved it all, looked
up and circled the sky-line where the crests of the
mountains blotted the field of stars .
" No , Cato," he mused aloud. " One cannot
agree with you. Man does not depart from life as
from an inn. He departs as from a dwelling, the
one dwelling he will ever know. He departs ...

nowhere. It is good night. For him the Noiseless

One . and the dark."
He made as if to start, but once again the stamp
of the stallions held him, and the hillside bell rang
out. He drew a deep inhalation through his nos-
trils of the air of balm, and loved it, and loved the
fair land of his devising.
" ' I looked into time and saw none of me there,' '
he quoted, then capped it, smiling, with a second
358
 THE LITTLE LADY 359

quotation : "" She gat me nine great sons.

,,,
..

The other nine were daughters .'

Back at the house, he did not immediately go in,
but stood a space gazing at the far flung lines of
it. Nor, inside, did he immediately go to his own
quarters. Instead, he wandered through the silent
rooms, across the patios, and along the dim-lit halls .
His frame of mind was as of one about to depart
on a journey. He pressed on the lights in Paula's
fairy patio, and, sitting in an austere Roman seat of
marble, smoked a cigarette quite through while he
made his plans .
Oh, he would do it nicely enough. He could pull
off a hunting accident that would fool the world.
Trust him not to bungle it. Next day would be
the day, in the woods above Sycamore Creek.
Grandfather Jonathan Forrest, the straight-laced
Puritan, had died of a hunting accident. For the
first time Dick doubted that accident. Well, if it
hadn't been an accident, the old fellow had done it
well. It had never been hinted in the family that
it was aught but an accident.
His hand on the button to turn off the lights ,
Dick delayed a moment for a last look at the mar-
ble babies that played in the fountain and among the
roses .

" So long, younglings," he called softly to them.

" You're the nearest I ever came to it."
From his sleeping porch he looked across the big
patio to Paula's porch. There was no light. The
chance was she slept.
On the edge of the bed, he found himself with one
shoe unlaced, and, smiling at his absentness, relaced
 360 THE LITTLE LADY

it. What need was there for him to sleep ? It

was already four in the morning. He would at least
watch his last sunrise. Last things were coming
fast. Already had he not dressed for the last time ?
And the bath of the previous morning would be his
last. Mere water could not stay the corruption of
death. He would have to shave, however — a last
vanity, for the hair did continue to grow for a time
on dead men's faces .
He brought a copy of his will from the wall-safe
to his desk and read it carefully. Several minor
codicils suggested themselves, and he wrote them out
in long-hand, pre-dating them six months as a precau-
tion. The last was the endowment of the sages of
the madrono grove with a fellowship of seven.
He ran through his life insurance policies, veri-
fying the permitted suicide clause in each one; signed
the tray of letters that had waited his signature
since the previous morning; and dictated a letter
into the phonograph to the publisher of his books.
His desk cleaned, he scrawled a quick summary of
income and expense, with all earnings from the
Harvest mines deducted. He transposed the sum-
mary into a second summary, increasing the expense
margins, and cutting down the income items to an
absurdest least possible. Still the result was satis-
factory.
He tore up the sheets of figures and wrote out a
program for the future handling of the Harvest sit-
uation. He did it sketchily, with casual tentative-
ness, so that when it was found among the papers
there would be no suspicions. In the same fash
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 361

ion he worked out a line-breeding program for the

Shires, and an in-breeding table, up and down, for
Mountain Lad and the Fotherington Princess and
certain selected individuals of their progeny.
When Oh My came in with coffee at six, Dick
was on his last paragraph of his scheme for rice-
growing.
" Although the Italian rice may be worth experi-
menting with for quick maturity," he wrote, " I
shall for a time confine the main plantings in equal
proportions to Moti, Ioko, and the Wateribune.
Thus, with different times of maturing, the same
crews and the same machinery, with the same over-
head, can work a larger acreage than if only one va-
riety is planted."
Oh My served the coffee at his desk, and made
no sign even after a glance to the porch at the bed
which had not been slept in — all of which control
Dick permitted himself privily to admire.
At six-thirty the telephone rang and he heard
Hennessy's tired voice : " I knew you'd be up and
glad to know Alden Bessie's pulled through. It
was a squeak, though. And now it's me for the
hay."
When Dick had shaved, he looked at the shower,
hesitated a moment, then his face set stubbornly.
I'm darned if I will, was his thought; a sheer waste
of time. He did, however, change his shoes to a
pair of heavy, high-laced ones fit for the roughness
of hunting.
He was at his desk again, looking over the notes
in his scribble pads for the morning's work, when
362 THE LITTLE LADY

Paula entered. She did not call her " Good morn-
ing, merry gentleman " ; but came quite close to him
before she greeted him softly with :
" The Acorn-planter. Ever tireless, never weary
Red Cloud."
He noted the violet-blue shadows under her eyes,
as he arose, without offering to touch her. Nor did
she offer invitation.
" A white night ? " he asked, as he placed a chair.
" A white night, " she answered wearily. " Not a
second's sleep, though I tried so hard."
Both were reluctant of speech, and they labored
under a mutual inability to draw their eyes away
from each other.
" You • •
you don't look any too fit yourself,"
she said.
" Yes, my face," he nodded. " I was looking at
it while I shaved. The expression won't come off."
" Something happened to you last night," she
probed, and he could not fail to see the same com-
passion in her eyes that he had seen in Oh Dear's.
،،

Everybody remarked your expression. What was

it? "
He shrugged his shoulders. " It has been com-
ing on for some time," he evaded, remembering that
the first hint of it had been given him by Paula's
portrait of him. " You've noticed it? " he inquired
casually.
She nodded, then was struck by a sudden thought.
He saw the idea leap to life ere her words uttered it.
" Dick, you haven't an affair ? "
It was a way out. It would straighten all the tan-
gle. And hope was in her voice and in her face.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 363

He smiled, shook his head slowly, and watched

her disappointment.
" I take it back," he said. " I have an affair."
" Of the heart ? "
She was eager, as he answered, " Of the heart."
But she was not prepared for what came next.
He abruptly drew his chair close, till his knees
touched hers, and, leaning forward, quickly but
gently prisoned her hands in his resting on her knees.
" Don't be alarmed, little bird-woman," he quieted
her. " I shall not kiss you. It is a long time since
I have. I want to tell you about that affair. But
first I want to tell you how proud I am — proud of
myself. I am proud that I am a lover. At my
age, a lover ! It is unbelievable, and it is wonder-
ful. And such a lover ! Such a curious, unusual,
and quite altogether remarkable lover. In fact, I
have laughed all the books and all biology in the face.
I am a monogamist. I love the woman, the one
woman. After a dozen years of possession I love
her quite madly, oh, so sweetly madly."
Her hands communicated her disappointment to
him, making a slight, impulsive flutter to escape ; but
he held them more firmly.
" I know her every weakness, and, weakness and
strength and all, I love her as madly as I loved her
at the first, in those mad moments when I first held
her in my arms."
Her hands were mutinous of the restraint he put
upon them, and unconsciously she was beginning to
pull and tug to be away from him. Also, there was
fear in her eyes. He knew her fastidiousness, and
he guessed, with the other man's lips recent on hers,
364 THE LITTLE LADY

that she feared a more ardent expression on his part.

" And please, please be not frightened, timid,
sweet, beautiful, proud, little bird-woman. See. I
release you. Know that I love you most dearly, and
that I am considering you as well as myself, and be-
fore myself, all the while."
He drew his chair away from her, leaned back,
and saw confidence grow in her eyes .
" I shall tell you all my heart," he continued, " and
I shall want you to tell me all your heart."
" This love for me is something new ? " she asked.
" A recrudescence ? "
" Yes , a recrudescence, and no."
" I thought that for a long time I had been a habit
to you," she said.
" But I was loving you all the time."
" Not madly."
" No," he acknowledged. " But with certainty.
I was so sure of you, of myself. It was, to me, all a
permanent and forever established thing. I plead
guilty. But when that permanency was shaken, all
my love for you fired up. It was there all the time,
a steady, long-married flame."
" But about me? " she demanded.
" That is what we are coming to. I know your
worry right now, and of a minute ago. You are so
intrinsically honest, so intrinsically true, that the
thought of sharing two men is abhorrent to you. I
have not misread you. It is a long time since you
have permitted me any love-touch." He shrugged
his shoulders " And an equally long time since I
offered you a love-touch."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 365

" Then you have known from the first? " she
asked quickly.
He nodded.
" Possibly," he added, with an air of judicious
weighing, " I sensed it coming before even you knew
it. But we will not go into that or other things."
" You have seen ." she attempted to ask,
stung almost to shame at thought of her husband
having witnessed any caress of hers and Graham's .
" We will not demean ourselves with details,
Paula. Besides, there was and is nothing wrong
about any of it. Also, it was not necessary for me
to see anything. I have my memories of when I,
too, kissed stolen kisses in the pause of the seconds
between the frank, outspoken ' Good nights.'
When all the signs of ripeness are visible —the love-
shades and love-notes that cannot be hidden, the un-
conscious caress of the eyes in a fleeting glance, the
involuntary softening of voices, the cuckoo-sob in
the throat— why, the night-parting kiss does not
need to be seen. It has to be. Still further, oh
my woman, know that I justify you in everything."
" It . • it was not ever •
much, " she fal-
tered.
" I should have been surprised if it had been. It
couldn't have been you. As it is, I have been sur-
prised. After our dozen years it was unexpected—"
" Dick," she interrupted him, leaning toward him
and searching him. She paused to frame her
thought, and then went on with directness. " In our
dozen years, will you say it has never been any more
with you ? "
366 THE LITTLE LADY

" I have told you that I justify you in everything,"

he softened his reply.
" But you have not answered my question," she in-
sisted. " Oh, I do not mean mere flirtatious pas-
sages, bits of primrose philandering. I mean un-
faithfulness and I mean it technically. In the past
you have ? "
" In the past," he answered, " not much, and not
for a long, long time."
" I often wondered," she mused.
" And I have told you I justify you in everything,"
he reiterated. " And now you know where lies the
justification."
" Then by the same token I had a similar right, "
66
she said. Though I haven't, Dick, I haven't, " she
hastened to add. " Well, anyway, you always did
preach the single standard."
" Alas, not any longer," he smiled. " One's im-
agination will conjure, and in the past few weeks I've
been forced to change my mind."
" You mean that you demand I must be faithful ? "
He nodded and said, " So long as you live with
me."
" But where's the equity ? "
" There isn't any equity," he shook his head.
" Oh, I know it seems a preposterous change of view.
But at this late day I have made the discovery of the
ancient truth that women are different from men.
All I have learned of book and theory goes glim-
mering before the everlasting fact that the women
are the mothers of our children. I. I still had
But that's
my hopes of children with you, you see.
all over and done with. The question now is,
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 367

what's in your heart ? I have told you mine. And

afterward we can determine what is to be done."
66

Oh, Dick," she breathed, after silence had

grown painful, " I do love you, I shall always love
you. You are my Red Cloud. Why, do you know,
only yesterday, out on your sleeping porch, I turned
my face to the wall. It was terrible. It didn't
seem right. I turned it out again, oh so quickly."
He lighted a cigarette and waited.
" But you have not told me what is in your heart,
all of it," he chided finally.
" I do love you," she repeated.
" And Evan ? "
" That is different. It is horrible to have to talk
this way to you. Besides, I don't know. I can't
make up my mind what is in my heart. "
" Love ? Or amorous adventure ? It must be
one or the other."
She shook her head.
" Can't you understand ? " she asked. " That I
I
don't understand ? You see, I am a woman.
have never sown any wild oats. And now that all
this has happened, I don't know what to make of it.
Shaw and the rest must be right. Women are hunt-
ing animals. You are both big game. I can't help
it. It is a challenge to me. And I find I am a puz-
zle to myself. All my concepts have been toppled
over by my conduct. I want you. I want Evan. I
want both of you. It is not amorous adventure, oh
believe me. And if by any chance it is, and I do
not know it — no, it isn't, I know it isn't."
" Then it is love."
" But I do love you, Red Cloud."
368 THE LITTLE LADY

" And you say you love him. You can't love both
of us."
" But I can. I do. I do love both of you.—
Oh, I am straight. I shall be straight. I must
work this out. I thought you might help me. That
is why I came to you this morning. There must be
some solution."
She looked at him appealingly as he answered, " It
is one or the other, Evan or me. I cannot imagine
any other solution. "
" That's what he says. But I can't bring myself
to it. He was for coming straight to you. I would
not permit him. He has wanted to go, but I held
him here, hard as it was on both of you, in order to
have you together, to compare you two, to weigh
you in my heart. And I get nowhere. I want you
both. I can't give either of you up."
" Unfortunately, as you see," Dick began, a slight
twinkle in his eyes, " while you may be polyandrously
inclined, we stupid male men cannot reconcile our-
selves to such a situation."
" Don't be cruel, Dick," she protested.
" Forgive me. It was not so meant. It was out
of my own hurt — an effort to bear it with philo-
sophical complacence."
" I have told him that he was the only man I had
ever met who is as great as my husband, and that
my husband is greater."
" That was loyalty to me, yes, and loyalty to your-
self," Dick explained. " You were mine until I
ceased being the greatest man in the world. He
then became the greatest man in the world."
She shook her head.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 369

" Let me try to solve it for you," he continued.

" You don't know your mind, your desire. You
can't decide between us because you equally want us
both? "
" Yes, " she whispered. " Only, rather, differ-
ently want you both."
" Then the thing is settled," he concluded shortly.
" What do you mean ? "
" This, Paula. I lose. Graham is the winner.
Don't you see. Here am I, even with him, even
and no more, while my advantage over him is our
dozen years together — the dozen years of past
love, the ties and bonds of heart and memory.
Heavens ! If all this weight were thrown in the
balance on Evan's side, you wouldn't hesitate an in-
stant in your decision. It is the first time you have
ever been bowled over in your life, and the expe-
rience, coming so late, makes it hard for you to
realize."
" But, Dick, you bowled me over."
He shook his head.
" I have always liked to think so, and sometimes
I have believed -

but never really. I never took

you off your feet, not even in the very beginning,
whirlwind as the affair was. You may have been
glamoured. You were never mad as I was mad,
never swept as I was swept. I loved you first —"
" And you were a royal lover."
" I loved you first, Paula, and, though you did re-
spond, it was not in the same way. I never took you
off your feet. It seems pretty clear that Evan has. "
" I wish I could be sure," she mused. " I have
a feeling of being bowled over, and yet I hesitate.
370 THE LITTLE LADY

The two are not compatible. Perhaps I never shall

be bowled over by any man. And you don't seem
to help me in the least."
" You, and you alone, can solve it, Paula," he said
gravely.
" But if you would help, if you would try — oh,
such a little, to hold me," she persisted.
" But I am helpless. My hands are tied. I can't
put an arm to hold you. You can't share two.
You have been in his arms —" He put up his hand
to hush her protest. " Please , please , dear, don't.
You have been in his arms. You flutter like a fright-
ened bird at thought of my caressing you. Don't
you see ? Your actions decide against me. You
have decided, though you may not know it. Your
very flesh has decided. You can bear his arms.
The thought of mine you cannot bear."
She shook her head with slow resoluteness.
" And still I do not, cannot, make up my mind,"
she persisted.
" But you must. The present situation is intol-
erable. You must decide quickly, for Evan must
go. You realize that. Or you must go. You
both cannot continue on here. Take all the time in
the world. Send Evan away. Or, suppose you go
and visit Aunt Martha for a while. Being away
from both of us might aid you to get somewhere.
Perhaps it will be better to call off the hunting. I'll
go alone, and you stay and talk it over with Evan.
Or come on along and talk it over with him as you
ride. Whichever way, I won't be in till late. I
may sleep out all night in one of the herder's cabins.
When I come back, Evan must be gone. Whether
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 371

or not you are gone with him will also have been de-
cided."
" And if I should go ? " she queried.
Dick shrugged his shoulders, and stood up, glanc-
ing at his wrist-watch.
" I have sent word to Blake to come earlier this
morning," he explained, taking a step toward the
door in invitation for her to go.
At the door she paused and leaned toward him.
" Kiss me, Dick," she said, and, afterward :
" This is not a .. •
love-touch." Her voice had
become suddenly husky. " It's just in case I do de-
cide to ...
to go ."
The secretary approached along the hall, but
Paula lingered.
" Good morning, Mr. Blake," Dick greeted him.
" Sorry to rout you out so early. First of all, will
you please telephone Mr. Agar and Mr. Pitts. I
won't be able to see them this morning. Oh, and
put the rest off till to-morrow, too. Make a point
of getting Mr. Hanley. Tell him I approve of his
plan for the Buckeye spillway, and to go right ahead.
I will see Mr. Mendenhall, though, and Mr. Man-
son. Tell them nine-thirty."
،،

" One thing, Dick," Paula said. Remember, I

made him stay. It was not his fault or wish. I
wouldn't let him go."
" You've bowled him over right enough," Dick
smiled. " I could not reconcile his staying on, under
the circumstances, with what I knew of him. But
with you not permitting him to go, and he as mad as
a man has a right to be where you are concerned, I
can understand. He's a whole lot better than a
372 THE LITTLE LADY

good sort. They don't make many like him. He

will make you happy —"
She held up her hand.
" I don't know that I shall ever be happy again,
Red Cloud. When I see what I have brought into
your face. And I was so happy and contented
all our dozen years. I can't forget it. That is why
I have been unable to decide. But you are right.
The time has come for me to solve the ... " She
"

hesitated and could not utter the word " triangle

which he saw forming on her lips. " The situa-
tion," her voice trailed away. " We'll all go hunt-
ing. I'll talk with him as we ride, and I'll send him
away, no matter what I do."
" I shouldn't be precipitate, Paul," Dick ad-
vised. " You know I don't care a hang for morality
except when it is useful. And in this case it is ex-
ceedingly useful. There may be children.— Please,
please," he hushed her. " And in such case even
old scandal is not exactly good for them. Deser-
tion takes too long. I'll arrange to give you the
real statutory grounds, which will save a year in the
divorce."
" If I so make up my mind," she smiled wanly.
He nodded.
" But I may not make up my mind that way. I
don't know it myself. Perhaps it's all a dream, and
soon I shall wake up, and Oh Dear will come in and
tell me how soundly and long I have slept."
She turned away reluctantly, and paused suddenly
when she had made half a dozen steps.
" Dick," she called. " You have told me your
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 373

heart, but not what's in your mind. Don't do any-

thing foolish. Remember Denny Holbrook —no
hunting accident, mind."
He shook his head, and twinkled his eyes in
feigned amusement, and marveled to himself that her
intuition should have so squarely hit the mark.
" And leave all this ? " he lied, with a gesture that
embraced the ranch and all its projects. " And that
book on in-and-in-breeding ? And my first annual
home sale of stock just ripe to come off ? "
" It would be preposterous," she agreed with
brightening face. " But, Dick, in this difficulty of
making up my mind, please, please know that-"
She paused for the phrase, then made a gesture in
mimicry of his, that included the Big House and its
treasures, and said, " All this does not influence me
a particle. Truly not."
" As if I did not know it," he assured her. " Of
all unmercenary women —"
" Why, Dick," she interrupted him, fired by a new
thought, " if I loved Evan as madly as you think,
you would mean so little that I'd be content, if it
were the only way out, for you to have a hunting ac-
cident. But you see, I don't. Anyway, there's a
brass tack for you to ponder."
She made another reluctant step away, then called
back in a whisper, her face over her shoulder :
" Red Cloud, I'm dreadfully sorry. .. And
through it all I'm so glad that you do still love me."
Before Blake returned, Dick found time to study
his face in the glass. Printed there was the ex-
pression that had startled his company the preceding
 :

374 THE LITTLE LADY

evening. It had come to stay. Oh, well, was his

thought, one cannot chew his heart between his teeth
without leaving some sign of it.
He strolled out on the sleeping porch and looked
at Paula's picture under the barometers. He turned
it to the wall, and sat on the bed and regarded the
blankness for a space. Then he turned it back
again.
" Poor little kid," he murmured, " having a hard
time of it just waking up at this late day."
But as he continued to gaze, abruptly there leaped
before his eyes the vision of her in the moonlight,
clinging to Graham and drawing his lips down to
hers .
Dick got up quickly, with a shake of head to shake
the vision from his eyes.
By half past nine his correspondence was finished
and his desk cleaned save for certain data to be used
in his talks with his Shorthorn and Shire managers.
He was over at the window and waving a smiling
farewell to Lute and Ernestine in the limousine, as
Mendenhall entered. And to him, and to Manson
next, Dick managed, in casual talk, to impress much
of his bigger breeding plans.
" We've got to keep an eagle eye on the bull-
get of King Polo," he told Manson. " There's all
the promise in the world for a greater than he from
Bleakhouse Fawn, or Alberta Maid, or Moravia's
Nellie Signal. We missed it this year so far, but
next year, or the year after, soon or late, King Polo
is going to be responsible for a real humdinger of a
winner."
And as with Manson, with much more talk, so
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 375

with Mendenhall, Dick succeeded in emphasizing

the far application of his breeding theories.
With their departure, he got Oh Joy on the house
'phone and told him to take Graham to the gun room
to choose a rifle and any needed gear.
At eleven he did not know that Paula had come
up the secret stairway from the library and was stand-
ing behind the shelves of books listening. She had
intended coming in but had been deterred by the
sound of his voice. She could hear him talking over
the telephone to Hanley about the spillway of the
Buckeye dam.
" And by the way," Dick's voice went on, " you've
been over the reports on the Big Miramar ? ...

Very good. Discount them. I disagree with them

flatly. The water is there. I haven't a doubt we'll
find a fairly shallow artesian supply. Send up the
boring outfit at once and start prospecting. The
soil's ungodly rich, and if we don't make that dry "

hole ten times as valuable in the next five years

•

Paula sighed, and turned back down the spiral to

the library.
Red Cloud the incorrigible, always planting his
acorns — was her thought. There he was, with his
love-world crashing around him, calmly considering
dams and well-borings so that he might, in the years
to come, plant more acorns .
Nor was Dick ever to know that Paula had come
so near to him with her need and gone away.
Again, not aimlessly, but to run through for the last
time the notes of the scribble pad by his bed, he
was out on his sleeping porch. His house was in
order. There was nothing left but to sign up the
 376 THE LITTLE LADY

morning's dictation, answer several telegrams, then

would come lunch and the hunting in the Sycamore
hills. Oh, he would do it well. The Outlaw would
bear the blame. And he would have an eye-witness,
1
either Froelig or Martinez. But not both of them.
One pair of eyes would be enough to satisfy when
!
the martingale parted and the mare reared and top-
pled backward upon him into the brush. And from
that screen of brush, swiftly linking accident to catas-
trophe, the witness would hear the rifle go off.
Martinez was more emotional than the sculptor
and would therefore make a more satisfactory wit-
ness, Dick decided. Him would he maneuver to
have with him in the narrow trail when the Out-
law should be made the scapegoat. Martinez was
no horseman. All the better. It would be well,
Dick judged, to make the Outlaw act up in real devil-
ishness for a minute or two before the culmination.
It would give verisimilitude. Also, it would excite
Martinez's horse, and, therefore, excite Martinez so
that he would not see occurrences too clearly.
He clenched his hands with sudden hurt. The
Little Lady was mad, she must be mad; on no other
ground could he understand such arrant cruelty, lis-
tening to her voice and Graham's from the open win-
dows of the music room as they sang together the
" Gypsy Trail."
Nor did he unclench his hands during all the time
they sang. And they sang the mad, reckless song
clear through to its mad reckless end. And he con-
tinued to stand, listening to her laugh herself merrily
away from Graham and on across the house to her
wing, from the porches of which she continued to
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 377

laugh as she teased and chided Oh Dear for fancied

derelictions.
From far off came the dim but unmistakable trum-
peting of Mountain Lad. King Polo asserted his
lordly self, and the harems of mares and heifers
sent back their answering calls. Dick listened to all
the whinnying and nickering and bawling of sex,
and sighed aloud : " Well, the land is better for my
having been. It is a good thought to take to bed."
 CHAPTER XXXI

RING of his bed 'phone made Dick sit on the

A bed to take up the receiver. As he listened,
he looked out across the patio to Paula's
porches. Bonbright was explaining that it was a call
from Chauncey Bishop who was at Eldorado in a
machine. Chauncey Bishop, editor and owner of
the San Francisco Dispatch, was sufficiently im-
portant a person, in Bonbright's mind, as well as
old friend of Dick's, to be connected directly to him.
" You can get here for lunch," Dick told the news-
paper owner. " And, say, suppose you put up for
the night.... Never mind your special writers.
We're going hunting mountain lions this afternoon,
and there's sure to be a kill. Got them located.
... Who ? What's she write ? ...
What of it ?
She can stick around the ranch and get half a dozen
columns out of any of half a dozen subjects, while
the writer chap can get the dope on lion-hunting.
...
Sure, sure. I'll put him on a horse a child can
ride."
The more the merrier, especially newspaper chaps,
Dick grinned to himself and grandfather Jona-
-

than Forrest would have nothing on him when it

came to pulling off a successful finish.
But how could Paula have been so wantonly cruel
as to sing the " Gypsy Trail " so immediately after-
378
 THE LITTLE LADY 379

ward ? Dick asked himself, as, receiver near to ear,

he could distantly hear Chauncey Bishop persuading
his writer man to the hunting.
" All right then, come a running," Dick told
Bishop in conclusion. " I'm giving orders now for
the horses, and you can have that bay you rode last
time."
Scarcely had he hung up, when the bell rang again.
This time it was Paula.
" Red Cloud, dear Red Cloud," she said, " your
reasoning is all wrong. I think I love you best.
I amjust about making up my mind, and it's for you.
And now, just to help me to be sure, tell me what
you told me a little while ago — you know —' I
love the woman, the one woman. After a dozen
years of possession I love her quite madly, oh, so
sweetly madly.' Say it to me, Red Cloud. "
" I do truly love the woman, the one woman,"
Dick repeated. " After a dozen years of possession
I do love her quite madly, oh, so sweetly madly. "
There was a pause when he had finished, which,
waiting, he did not dare to break.
" There is one little thing I almost forgot to tell
you," she said, very softly, very slowly, very clearly.
" I do love you. I have never loved you so much
as right now. After our dozen years you've bowled
me over at last. And I was bowled over from the
beginning, although I did not know it. I have made
up my mind now, once and for all."
She hung up abruptly.
With the thought that he knew how a man felt
receiving a reprieve at the eleventh hour, Dick sat
on, thinking, forgetful that he had not hooked the
 THE LITTLE LADY
380

receiver, until Bonbright came in from the secre-

taries' room to remind him.
" It was from Mr. Bishop," Bonbright explained.
" Sprung an axle. I took the liberty of sending one
of our machines to bring them in."
" And see what our men can do with repairing
theirs ," Dick nodded.
Alone again, he got up and stretched, walked ab-
sently the length of the room and back.
" Well, Martinez, old man," he addressed the
empty air, " this afternoon you'll be defrauded out
of as fine a histrionic stunt as you will never know
you've missed."
He pressed the switch for Paula's telephone and
rang her up.
Oh Dear answered, and quickly brought her mis-
tress.
" I've a little song I want to sing to you, Paul,"
he said, then chanted the old negro ' spiritual ' :
"" Fer itself, fer itself,
Fer itself, fer itself,
Every soul got ter confess
Fer itself.'

" And I want you to tell me again, fer yourself,

fer yourself, what you just told me."
Her laughter came in a merry gurgle that de-
lighted him.
" Red Cloud, I do love you," she said. " My
mind is made up. I shall never have any man but
you in all this world. Now be good, and let me
dress. I'll have to rush for lunch as it is."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 381

" May I come over ? - for a moment ? " he

begged.
" Not yet, eager one. In ten minutes. Let me
finish with Oh Dear first. Then I'll be all ready
for the hunt. I'm putting on my Robin Hood out-
fit — you know, the greens and russets and the long
feather. And I'm taking my 30-30. It's heavy
enough for mountain lions."
" You've made me very happy," Dick continued.
" And you're making me late. Ring off.- Red
Cloud, I love you more this minute —"
He heard her hang up, and was surprised, the
next moment, that somehow he was reluctant to yield
to the happiness that he had claimed was his.
Rather, did it seem that he could still hear her voice
and Graham's recklessly singing the " Gypsy Trail."
Had she been playing with Graham? Or had she
been playing with him? Such conduct, for her, was
unprecedented and incomprehensible. As he groped
for a solution, he saw her again in the moonlight,
clinging to Graham with upturned lips, drawing Gra-
ham's lips down to hers.
Dick shook his head in bafflement, and glanced at
his watch. At any rate, in ten minutes, in less than
ten minutes, he would hold her in his arms and know.
So tedious was the brief space of time that he
strolled slowly on the way, pausing to light a ciga-
rette, throwing it away with the first inhalation,
pausing again to listen to the busy click of type-
writers from the secretaries' room. With still two
minutes to spare, and knowing that one minute would
take him to the door without a knob, he stopped in
382 THE LITTLE LADY

the patio and gazed at the wild canaries bathing in

the fountain.
When they startled into the air, a cloud of flutter-
ing gold and crystal droppings in the sunshine, Dick
startled. The report of the rifle had come from
Paula's wing above, and he identified it as her 30-30
as he dashed across the patio. She beat me to it,
was his next thought, and what had been incompre-
hensible the moment before was as sharply definite as
the roar of her rifle.
And across the patio, up the stairs, through the
door left wide-flung behind him, continued to pulse
in his brain: She beat me to it. She beat me to it.
She lay, crumpled and quivering, in hunting cos-
tume complete, save for the pair of tiny bronze spurs
held over her in anguished impotence by the fright-
enedmaid.
His examination was quick. Paula breathed, al-
though she was unconscious. From front to back,
on the left side, the bullet had torn through. His
next spring was to the telephone, and as he waited
the delay of connecting through the house central
he prayed that Hennessy would be at the stallion
barn. A stable boy answered, and, while he ran
to fetch the veterinary, Dick ordered Oh Joy to
stay by the switches, and to send Oh My to him at
once.

From the tail of his eye he saw Graham rush into

the room and on to Paula.
" Hennessy, " Dick commanded. " Come on the
jump. Bring the needful for first aid. It's a rifle
shot through the lungs or heart or both. Come right
to Mrs. Forrest's rooms. Now jump. "
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 383

" Don't touch her," he said sharply to Graham.

" It might make it worse, start a worse hemorrhage . "
Next he was back at Oh Joy.
" Start Callahan with the racing car for Eldorado.
Tell him he'll meet Doctor Robinson on the way,
and that he is to bring Doctor Robinson back with
him on the jump. Tell him to jump like the devil
was after him. Tell him Mrs. Forrest is hurt and
that if he makes time he'll save her life . "
Receiver to ear, he turned to look at Paula. Gra-
ham, bending over her but not touching her, met his
eyes.
" Forrest, " he began, " if you have done —"
But Dick hushed him with a warning glance di-
rected toward Oh Dear who still held the bronze
spurs in speechless helplessness .
" It can be discussed later," Dick said shortly, as
he turned his mouth to the transmitter.
" Doctor Robinson ?. Good. Mrs. Forrest
has a rifle-shot through lungs or heart or maybe
both. Callahan is on his way to meet you in the rac-
ing car. Keep coming as fast as God'll let you till
you meet Callahan. Good-by. "
Back to Paula, Graham stepped aside as Dick, on
his knees, bent over her. His examination was
brief. He looked up at Graham with a shake of the
head and said :
" It's too ticklish to fool with."
He turned to Oh Dear.
" Put down those spurs and bring pillows.—
Evan, lend a hand on the other side, and lift gently
and steadily.— Oh Dear, shove that pillow under -

easy, easy."
 384 THE LITTLE LADY

He looked up and saw Oh My standing silently,

awaiting orders.
" Get Mr. Bonbright to relieve Oh Joy at the
switches, " Dick commanded. " Tell Oh Joy to
1 stand near to Mr. Bonbright to rush orders. Tell
Oh Joy to have all the house boys around him to
rush the orders. As soon as Saunders comes back
with Mr. Bishop's crowd, tell Oh Joy to start him
out on the jump to Eldorado to look for Callahan
in case Callahan has a smash up. Tell Oh Joy to
get hold of Mr. Manson, and Mr. Pitts or any two
of the managers who have machines and have them,
with their machines, waiting here at the house. Tell
Oh Joy to take care of Mr. Bishop's crowd as usual.
And you come back here where I can call you."
Dick turned to Oh Dear.
" Now tell me how it happened."
Oh Dear shook her head and wrung her hands.
" Where were you when the rifle went off ? "
The Chinese girl swallowed and pointed toward
the wardrobe room.
" Go on, talk, " Dick commanded harshly.
" Mrs. Forrest tell me to get spurs. I forget be-
fore. I go quick. I hear gun. I come back quick.
-
I run."
She pointed to Paula to show what she had found.
" But the gun ? " Dick asked.
" Some trouble. Maybe gun no work. Maybe
four minutes, maybe five minutes, Mrs. Forrest try
make gun work."
" Was she trying to make the gun work when you
went for the spurs ? "
Oh Dear nodded.
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 385

" Before that I say maybe Oh Joy can fix gun.

Mrs. Forrest say never mind. She say you can fix.
She put gun down. Then she try once more fix gun.
Then she tell me get spurs. Then gun go
off."
Hennessy's arrival shut off further interrogation.
His examination was scarcely less brief than Dick's.
He looked up with a shake of the head.
" Nothing I can dare tackle, Mr. Forrest. The
hemorrhage has eased of itself, though it must be
gathering inside. You've sent for a doctor ? "
" Robinson. I caught him in his office. - He's
young, a good surgeon," Dick explained to Graham.
" He's nervy and daring, and I'd trust him in this
farther than some of the old ones with reputations.
— What do you think, Mr. Hennessy ? What
chance has she ? "
" Looks pretty bad, though I'm no judge, being
only a horse doctor. Robinson'll know. Nothing
to do but wait. "
Dick nodded and walked out on Paula's sleeping
porch to listen for the exhaust of the racing machine
Callahan drove. He heard the ranch limousine ar-
rive leisurely and swiftly depart. Graham came out
on the porch to him.
" I want to apologize, Forrest," he said. " I was
rather off for the moment. I found you here, and I
thought you were here when it happened. It must
have been an accident. ”
" Poor little kid," Dick agreed. "And she so
prided herself on never being careless with guns ."
" I've looked at the rifle," Graham said, " but I
couldn't find anything wrong with it."
386 THE LITTLE LADY

" And that's how it happened. Whatever was

wrong got right. That's how it went off."
And while Dick talked, building the fabric of the
lie so that even Graham should be fooled, to him-
self he was understanding how well Paula had played
the trick. That last singing of the " Gypsy Trail "
had been her farewell to Graham and at the same
time had provided against any suspicion on his part
of what she had intended directly to do. It had
been the same with him. She had had her farewell
with him, and, the last thing, over the telephone, had
assured him that she would never have any man but
him in all the world.
He walked away from Graham to the far end of
the porch.
" She had the grit, she had the grit," he muttered
to himself with quivering lips. " Poor kid. She
couldn't decide between the two, and so she solved it
this way."
The noise of the racing machine drew him and
Graham together, and together they entered the
room to wait for the doctor. Graham betrayed un-
rest, reluctant to go, yet feeling that he must.
" Please stay on, Evan," Dick told him. "She
liked you much, and if she does open her eyes she'll
be glad to see you."
Dick and Graham stood apart from Paula while
Doctor Robinson made his examination. When he
arose with an air of finality, Dick looked his ques-
tion. Robinson shook his head.
" Nothing to be done," he said. " It is a matter
of hours, maybe of minutes." He hesitated, study-
ing Dick's face for a moment. " I can ease her off
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 387

if you say the word. She might possibly recover

consciousness and suffer for a space."
Dick took a turn down the room and back, and
when he spoke it was to Graham.
" Why not let her live again, brief as the time
may be ? The pain is immaterial. It will have its
inevitable quick anodyne. It is what I would wish,
what you would wish. She loved life, every mo-
ment of it. Why should we deny her any of the lit-
tle left her ? "
Graham bent his head in agreement, and Dick
turned to the doctor.
66

Perhaps you can stir her, stimulate her, to a

return of consciousness. If you can, do so. And
if the pain proves too severe, then you can ease her."
When her eyes fluttered open, Dick nodded Gra-
ham up beside him. At first bewilderment was all
she betrayed, then her eyes focused first on Dick's
face, then on Graham's, and, with recognition, her
lips parted in a pitiful smile.
"I I thought at first that I was dead," she
said.
But quickly another thought was in her mind, and
Dick divined it in her eyes as they searched him.
The question was if he knew it was no accident. He
gave no sign. She had planned it so, and she must
pass believing it so.
"I was ..
wrong," she said. She spoke
slowly, faintly, in evident pain, with a pause for
strength of utterance between each word. " I was
always so cocksure I'd never have an accident, and
look what I've gone and done."
388 THE LITTLE LADY

" It's a darn shame," Dick said, sympathetically.

" What was it ? A jam? "
She nodded, and again her lips parted in the piti-
ful brave smile as she said whimsically: " Oh,
Dick, go call the neighbors in and show them what
little Paula's din.
" How serious is it?" she asked. " Be honest,
Red Cloud, you know me," she added, after the
briefest of pauses in which Dick had not replied.
He shook his head.
" How long ? " she queried.
" Not long," came his answer. " You can ease
off any time. "
" You mean .? " She glanced aside curiously
at the doctor and back to Dick, who nodded.
" It's only what I should have expected from you,
Red Cloud," she murmured gratefully. " But is
Doctor Robinson game for it? "
The doctor stepped around so that she could see
him, and nodded.
" Thank you, doctor. And remember, I am to
say when."
" Is there much pain ? " Dick queried.
Her eyes were wide and brave and dreadful, and
her lips quivered for the moment ere she replied,
" Not much, but dreadful, quite dreadful. I won't
care to stand it very long. I'll say when. "
Once more the smile on her lips announced a
whimsey.
" Life is queer, most queer, isn't it ? And do
you know, I want to go out with love-songs in my
ears. You first, Evan, sing the ' Gypsy Trail.'
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 389

Why, I was singing it with you less than an hour

ago. Think of it ! Do, Evan, please."
Graham looked to Dick for permission, and Dick
gave it with his eyes.
" Oh, and sing it robustly, gladly, madly, just as
awomaning Gypsy man should sing it, " she urged.
" And stand back there, so, where I can see you."
And while Graham sang the whole song through
to its :

" The heart of a man to the heart of a maid, light of my

tents be fleet,
Morning waits at the end of the world and the world is
all at our feet,"

Oh My, immobile -faced, a statue , stood in the far

doorway awaiting commands . Oh Dear, grief-
stricken, stood at her mistress's head, no longer
wringing her hands, but holding them so tightly
clasped that the finger-tips and nails showed white.
To the rear, at Paula's dressing table , Doctor Rob-
inson noiselessly dissolved in a glass the anodyne pel-
lets and filled his hypodermic.
When Graham had finished, Paula thanked him
with her eyes, closed them, and lay still for a space.
" And now, Red Cloud," she said when next she
opened them, " the song of Ai-kut, and of the Dew-
Woman, the Lush-Woman . Stand where Evan did,
so that I can see you well."
And Dick chanted :
" I am Ai-kut, the first man of the Nishinam. .

Ai-kut is the short for Adam, and my father and

And
my mother were the coyote and the moon.
390 THE LITTLE LADY

this is Yo-to-to-wi, my wife. Yo-to-to-wi is the short

for Eve. She is the first woman of the Nishinam.
" Me, I am Ai-kut. This is my dew of women.
This is my honey-dew of women. Her father and
her mother were the Sierra dawn and the summer
east wind of the mountains. Together they con-
spired, and from the air and earth they sweated all
sweetness till in a mist of their own love the leaves
of the chaparral and the manzanita were dewed with
the honey dew.
" Yo-to-to-wi is my honey-dew woman. Hear
me ! I am Ai-kut ! Yo-to-to-wi is my quail-woman,
my deer-woman, my lush-woman of all soft rain and
fat soil. She was born of the thin starlight and the
brittle dawn-light, in the morning of the world, and
she is the one woman of all women to me."
Again, with closed eyes, she lay silent for a while.
Once she attempted to draw a deeper breath, which
caused her to cough slightly several times.
66
Try not to cough, " Dick said.
They could see her brows contract with the effort
of will to control the irritating tickle that might pre-
cipitate a paroxysm.
" Oh Dear, come around where I can see you,"
she said, when she opened her eyes.
The Chinese girl obeyed, moving blindly, so that
Robinson, with a hand on her arm, was compelled to
guide her.
" Good-by, Oh Dear. You've been very good
to me always. And sometimes, maybe, I have not
been good to you. I am sorry. Remember, Mr.
Forrest will always be your father and your mother.
...
And all my jade is yours."
 OF THE BIG HOUSE 391

She closed her eyes in token that the brief audience

was over.

Again she was vexed by the tickling cough that

threatened to grow more pronounced.
" I am ready, Dick," she said faintly, still with
closed eyes. " I want to make my sleepy, sleepy
noise. Is the doctor ready? Come closer. Hold
my hand like you did before in the little death."
She turned her eyes to Graham, and Dick did not
look, for he knew love was in that last look of hers,
as he knew it would be when she looked into his eyes
at the last.
" Once," she explained to Graham, " I had to go
on the table, and I made Dick go with me into the
anæsthetic chamber and hold my hand until I went
under. You remember, Henley called it the drunken
dark, the little death in life. It was very easy."
In the silence she continued her look, then turned
her face and eyes back to Dick, who knelt close to
her, holding her hand.
With a pressure of her fingers on his and a beck-
oning of her eyes, she drew his ear down to her
lips.
" Red Cloud," she whispered, " I love you best.
And I am proud I belonged to you for such a long,
long time. " Still closer she drew him with the
pressure of her fingers. " I'm sorry there were no
babies , Red Cloud."
With the relaxing of her fingers she eased him
from her so that she could look from one to the
other.
" Two bonnie, bonnie men. Good-by, bonnie
men. Good-by, Red Cloud."
392 THE LITTLE LADΥ

In the pause, they waited, while the doctor bared

her arm for the needle.
" Sleepy, sleepy," she twittered in mimicry of
drowsy birds. " I am ready, doctor. Stretch the
skin tight, first. You know I don't like to be hurt.
-

Hold me tight, Dick."

Robinson, receiving the eye permission from Dick,
easily and quickly thrust the needle through the
stretched skin, with steady hand sank the piston
home, and with the ball of the finger soothingly
rubbed the morphine into circulation.
" Sleepy, sleepy, boo'ful sleepy," she murmured
drowsily, after a time.
Semi-consciously she half-turned on her side,
curved her free arm on the pillow and nestled her
head on it, and drew her body up in nestling curves
in the way Dick knew she loved to sleep.
After a long time, she sighed faintly, and began
so easily to go that she was gone before they guessed.
From without, the twittering of the canaries bathing
in the fountain penetrated the silence of the room,
and from afar came the trumpeting of Mountain
Lad and the silver whinny of the Fotherington
Princess.

THE END

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64
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