The Californians | Page 2

great white swans, with long soft throats bending backwards. I don't express myself very well; but I shall some day. Just you wait; I'm going to be a scholar and a lot of other things too."
"What, Helena?" Magdaléna drew closer. She thought Helena already the most eloquent person alive, and she envied her deeply, although without bitterness, loving her devotedly. The great gifts of expression and of personal magnetism had been denied her. She had no hope, and at that time little wish, that the last paucity could ever be made good by the power of will; but that articulate inner self had registered a vow that hard study and close attention to the methods of Helena and others as--or nearly as--brilliant should one day invest her brain and tongue with suppleness.
"What other things are you going to be, Helena?" she asked. "I know that you can be anything you like."
"Well, in the first place, I am going to New York to school,--now, don't look so sad: I've told you twenty times that I know Don Roberto will let you go. Then I'm going to Europe. I'm going to study hard--but not hard enough to spoil my eyes. I'm going to finish off in Paris, and then I'm going to travel. Incidentally, I'm going to learn how to dress, so that when I come back here I'll astonish the natives and be the best-dressed woman in San Francisco; which won't be saying much, to be sure. Then, when I do come back, I'm going to just rule things, and, what is more, make all the old fogies let me. And--and--I am going to be the greatest belle this State has ever seen; and that is saying something."
"Of course you will do all that, Helena. It will be so interesting to watch you. Ila and Tiny will never compare with you. Some people are made like that,--some one way and some another, I mean. Shall--shall--you ever marry, Helena?"
"Yes. After I have been engaged a dozen times or so I shall marry a great man."
"A great man?"
"Yes; I don't know any, but they are charming in history and memoirs. I'd have a simply gorgeous time in Washington, and ever after I'd have my picture in 'Famous Women' books."
"Shall you marry a president?" asked Magdaléna, deferentially. She was convinced that Helena could marry a reigning sovereign if she wished.
"I haven't made up my mind about that yet. Presidents' wives are usually such dreary-looking frumps I'd hate to be in the same book with them. Besides, most of the presidents don't amount to much. Truthful George must have been a deadly bore. I prefer Benjamin Franklin--although I never could stand that nose--or Clay or Calhoun or Patrick Henry or Webster. They're dead, but there must be lots more. I'll find one for you, too."
Again the dark flush mounted to Magdaléna's hair, as with an alertness of motion unusual to her, she shook her head.
"Aha!" cried the astute Helena, "you've been thinking the matter over, too, have you? Who is he? Tell me."
Magdaléna shook her head again, but slowly this time. Helena embraced and coaxed, but to no effect. Even with her chosen friend, Magdaléna was reticent, not from choice, but necessity. But Helena, whose love was great and whose intuitions were diabolical, leaped to the secret. "I know!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "It's a caballero!"
This time Magdaléna's face turned almost purple; but she had neither her sex's quick instinct of self-protection nor its proneness to dissemble, secretive as she was. She lifted her head haughtily and turned away. For a moment she looked very Spanish, not the unfortunate result of coupled races that she was. Helena, who was in her naughtiest humour, threw back her head and laughed scornfully. "A caballero!" she cried: "who will serenade you at two o'clock in the morning when you are dying with sleep, and lie in a hammock smoking cigaritos all day; who will roll out rhetoric by the yard, and look like an idiot when you talk common-sense to him; who is too lazy to walk across the plaza, and too proud to work, and too silly to keep the Americans from grabbing all he's got. I met a few dilapidated specimens when I was in Los Angeles last year. One beauty with long hair, a sombrero, and a head about as big as my fist, used to serenade me in intervals of gambling until I appealed to Jack, and he threatened to have him put in the calaboose if he didn't let me alone--"
Magdaléna turned upon her. Her face was livid. Her eyes stared as if she had seen the dead walking. "Hush!" she said. "You--you cruel--you have everything--"
Helena, whose intuitions never failed her, when she chose to exercise them, knew what she had done, caught a