Part 20

“I couldn't help it, it was so beautiful.”

“Isn't it?”

“Perfect.”

“And such shadows, and such intensity of color.”

“Wonderful!--and all along the ridge, looking down that defile!”

“Yes, and that point where it seems as if you had only to stretch out your hand to pick a manzanita berry from the other side of the canyon, half a mile across!”

“Yes, and that first glimpse of the valley through the Gothic gateway of rocks!”

“And the color of those rocks,--cinnamon and bronze with the light green of the Yerba buena vine splashing over them.”

“Yes, but for color DID you notice that hillside of yellow poppies pouring down into the valley like a golden Niagara?”

“Certainly,--and the perfect clearness of everything.”

“And yet such complete silence and repose!”

“Oh, yes!”

“Ah, yes!”

They were both gravely nodding and shaking their heads with sparkling eyes and brightened color, looking not at each other but at the far landscape vignetted through a lozenge-shaped wind opening in the trees. Suddenly Mrs. Ashwood straightened herself in the saddle, looked grave, lifted the reins and apparently the ten years with them that had dropped from her. But she said in her easiest well-bred tones, and a half sigh, “Then I must take the road back again to where it forks?”

“Oh, no! you can go by Crystal Spring. It's no further, and I'll show you the way. But you'd better stop and rest yourself and your horse for a little while at the Springs Hotel. It's a very nice place. Many people ride there from San Francisco to luncheon and return. I wonder that your party didn't prefer it; and if they are looking for you,--as they surely must be,” he said, as if with a sudden conception of her importance, “they'll come there when they find you're not at San Mateo.”

This seemed reasonable, although the process of being “fetched” and taking the five miles ride, which she had enjoyed so much alone, in company was not attractive. “Couldn't I go on at once?” she said impulsively.

“You would meet them sooner,” he said thoughtfully.

This was quite enough for Mrs. Ashwood. “I think I'll rest this poor horse, who is really tired,” she, said with charming hypocrisy, “and stop at the hotel.”

She saw his face brighten. Perhaps he was the son of the hotel proprietor, or a youthful partner himself. “I suppose you live here?” she suggested gently. “You seem to know the place so well.”

“No,” he returned quickly; “I only run down here from San Francisco when I can get a day off.”

A day off! He was in some regular employment. But he continued: “And I used to go to boarding-school near here, and know all these woods well.”

He must be a native! How odd! She had not conceived that there might be any other population here than the immigrants; perhaps that was what made him so interesting and different from the others. “Then your father and mother live here?” she said.

His frank face, incapable of disguise, changed suddenly. “No,” he said simply, but without any trace of awkwardness. Then after a slight pause he laid his hand--she noticed it was white and well kept--on her mustang's neck, and said, “If--if you care to trust yourself to me, I could lead you and your horse down a trail into the valley that is at least a third of the distance shorter. It would save you going back to the regular road, and there are one or two lovely views that I could show you. I should be so pleased, if it would not trouble you. There's a steep place or two--but I think there's no danger.”

“I shall not be afraid.”

She smiled so graciously, and, as she fully believed, maternally, that he looked at her the second time. To his first hurried impression of her as an elegant and delicately nurtured woman--one of the class of distinguished tourists that fashion was beginning to send thither--he had now to add that she had a quantity of fine silken-spun light hair gathered in a heavy braid beneath her gray hat; that her mouth was very delicately lipped and beautifully sensitive; that her soft skin, although just then touched with excitement, was a pale faded velvet, and seemed to be worn with ennui rather than experience; that her eyes were hidden behind a strip of gray veil whence only a faint glow was discernible. To this must still be added a poetic fancy all his own that, as she sat there, with the skirt of her gray habit falling from her long bodiced waist over the mustang's fawn-colored flanks, and with her slim gauntleted hands lightly swaying the reins, she looked like Queen Guinevere in the forest. Not that he particularly fancied Queen Guinevere, or that he at all imagined himself Launcelot, but it was quite in keeping with the suggestion-haunted brain of John Milton Harcourt, whom the astute reader has of course long since recognized.

Preceding her through the soft carpeted vault with a woodman's instinct,--for there was apparently no trail to be seen,--the soft inner twilight began to give way to the outer stronger day, and presently she was startled to see the clear blue of the sky before her on apparently the same level as the brown pine-tessellated floor she was treading. Not only did this show her that she was crossing a ridge of the upland, but a few moments later she had passed beyond the woods to a golden hillside that sloped towards a leafy, sheltered, and exquisitely-proportioned valley. A tiny but picturesque tower, and a few straggling roofs and gables, the flashing of a crystal stream through the leaves, and a narrow white ribbon of road winding behind it indicated the hostelry they were seeking. So peaceful and unfrequented it looked, nestling between the hills, that it seemed as if they had discovered it.

With his hand at times upon the bridle, at others merely caressing her mustang's neck, he led the way; there were a few breathless places where the crown of his straw hat appeared between her horse's reins, and again when she seemed almost slipping over on his shoulder, but they were passed with such frank fearlessness and invincible youthful confidence on the part of her escort that she felt no timidity. There were moments when a bit of the charmed landscape unfolding before them overpowered them both, and they halted to gaze,--sometimes without a word, or only a significant gesture of sympathy and attention. At one of those artistic manifestations Mrs. Ashwood laid her slim gloved fingers lightly but unwittingly on John Milton's arm, and withdrew them, however, with a quick girlish apology and a foolish color which annoyed her more than the appearance of familiarity. But they were now getting well down into the valley; the court of the little hotel was already opening before them; their unconventional relations in the idyllic world above had changed; the new one required some delicacy of handling, and she had an idea that even the simplicity of the young stranger might be confusing.

“I must ask you to continue to act as my escort,” she said, laughingly. “I am Mrs. Ashwood of Philadelphia, visiting San Francisco with my sister and brother, who are, I am afraid, even now hopelessly waiting luncheon for me at San Mateo. But as there seems to be no prospect of my joining them in time, I hope you will be able to give me the pleasure of your company, with whatever they may give us here in the way of refreshment.”