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Mr. Rushbrook glanced rapidly at his unknown guest. "Excuse me," he said, with respectful business brevity, "but I thought every one was out," and he stepped backward quickly.
"I've only just come," she said without embarrassment, "and would you mind, as you ARE here, giving me a lift with this table?"
"Certainly," replied Rushbrook, and under the young girl's direction the millionaire moved the table to one side.
During the operation he was trying to determine which of his unrecognized guests the fair occupant was. Possibly one of the Leyton party, that James had spoken of as impending.
"Then you have changed all the furniture, and put up these things?" he asked, pointing to the laurel.
"Yes, the room was really something TOO awful. It looks better now, don't you think?"
"A hundred per cent.," said Rushbrook, promptly. "Look here, I'll tell you what you've done. You've set the furniture TO WORK! It was simply lying still—with no return to anybody on the investment."
The young girl opened her gray eyes at this, and then smiled. The intruder seemed to be characteristic of California. As for Rushbrook, he regretted that he did not know her better, he would at once have asked her to rearrange all the rooms, and have managed in some way liberally to reward her for it. A girl like that had no nonsense about her.
"Yes," she said, "I wonder Mr. Rushbrook don't look at it in that way. It is a shame that all these pretty things—and you know they are really good and valuable—shouldn't show what they are. But I suppose everybody here accepts the fact that this man simply buys them because they are valuable, and nobody interferes, and is content to humor him, laugh at him, and feel superior. It don't strike me as quite fair, does it you?"
Rushbrook was pleased. Without the vanity that would be either annoyed at this revelation of his reputation, or gratified at her defense of it, he was simply glad to discover that she had not recognized him as her host, and could continue the conversation unreservedly. "Have you seen the ladies' boudoir?" he asked. "You know, the room fitted with knick-knacks and pretty things—some of 'em bought from old collections in Europe, by fellows who knew what they were but perhaps," he added, looking into her eyes for the first time, "didn't know exactly what ladies cared for."
"I merely glanced in there when I first came, for there was such a queer lot of women—I'm told he isn't very particular in that way—that I didn't stay."
"And you didn't think THEY might be just as valuable and good as some of the furniture, if they could have been pulled around and put into shape, or set in a corner, eh?"
The young girl smiled; she thought her fellow-guest rather amusing, none the less so, perhaps, for catching up her own ideas, but nevertheless she slightly shrugged her shoulders with that hopeless skepticism which women reserve for their own sex. "Some of them looked as if they had been pulled around, as you say, and hadn't been improved by it."
"There's no one there now," said Rushbrook, with practical directness; "come and take a look at it." She complied without hesitation, walking by his side, tall, easy, and self-possessed, apparently accepting without self-consciousness his half paternal, half comrade-like informality. The boudoir was a large room, repeating on a bigger scale the incongruousness and ill fitting splendor of the others. When she had of her own accord recognized and pointed out the more admirable articles, he said, gravely looking at his watch, "We've just about seven minutes yet; if you'd like to pull and haul these things around, I'll help you."
The young girl smiled. "I'm quite content with what I've done in my own room, where I have no one's taste to consult but my own. I hardly know how Mr. Rushbrook, or his lady friends, might like my operating here." Then recognizing with feminine tact the snub that might seem implied in her refusal, she said quickly, "Tell me something about our host—but first look! isn't that pretty?"
She had stopped before the window that looked upon the dim blue abyss of the canyon, and was leaning out to gaze upon it. Rushbrook joined her.
"There isn't much to be changed down THERE, is there?" he said, half interrogatively.
"No, not unless Mr. Rushbrook took it into his head to roof it in, and somebody was ready with a contract to do it. But what do you know of him? Remember, I'm quite a stranger here."
"You came with Charley Leyton?"
"With MRS. Leyton's party," said the young girl, with a half-smiling emphasis. "But it seems that we don't know whether Mr. Rushbrook wants us here or not till he comes. And the drollest thing about it is that they're all so perfectly frank in saying so."
"Charley and he are old friends, and you'll do well to trust to their judgment."
This was hardly the kind of response that the handsome and clever society girl before him had been in the habit of receiving, but it amused her. Her fellow-guest was decidedly original. But he hadn't told her about Rushbrook, and it struck her that his opinion would be independent, at least. She reminded him of it.
"Look here," said Rushbrook, "you'll meet a man here to-night—or he'll be sure to meet YOU—who'll tell you all about Rushbrook. He's a smart chap, knows everybody and talks well. His name is Jack Somers; he is a great ladies' man. He can talk to you about these sort of things, too,"—indicating the furniture with a half tolerant, half contemptuous gesture, that struck her as inconsistent with what seemed to be his previous interest,—"just as well as he can talk of people. Been in Europe, too."
The young girl's eye brightened with a quick vivacity at the name, but a moment after became reflective and slightly embarrassed. "I know him—I met him at Mr. Leyton's. He has already talked of Mr. Rushbrook, but," she added, avoiding any conclusion, with a pretty pout, "I'd like to have the opinion of others. Yours, now, I fancy would be quite independent."
"You stick to what Jack Somers has said, good or bad, and you won't be far wrong," he said assuringly. He stopped; his quick ear had heard approaching voices; he returned to her and held out his hand. As it seemed to her that in California everybody shook hands with everybody else on the slightest occasions, sometimes to save further conversation, she gave him her own. He shook it, less forcibly than she had feared, and abruptly left her. For a moment she was piqued at this superior and somewhat brusque way of ignoring her request, but reflecting that it might be the awkwardness of an untrained man, she dismissed it from her mind. The voices of her friends in the already resounding passages also recalled her to the fact that she had been wandering about the house with a stranger, and she rejoined them a little self-consciously.
"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Leyton, gayly, "it seems we are to stay. Leyton says Rushbrook won't hear of our going."
"Does that mean that your husband takes the whole opera troupe over to your house in exchange?"
"Don't be satirical, but congratulate yourself on your opportunity of seeing an awfully funny gathering. I wouldn't have you miss it for the world. It's the most characteristic thing out."
"Characteristic of what?"
"Of Rushbrook, of course. Nobody else would conceive of getting together such a lot of queer people."
"But don't it strike you that we're a part of the lot?"
"Perhaps," returned the lively Mrs. Leyton. "No doubt that's the reason why Jack Somers is coming over, and is so anxious that YOU should stay. I can't imagine why else he should rave about Miss Grace Nevil as he does. Come, Grace, no New York or Philadelphia airs, here! Consider your uncle's interests with this capitalist, to say nothing of ours. Because you're a millionaire and have been accustomed to riches from your birth, don't turn up your nose at our unpampered appetites. Besides, Jack Somers is Rushbrook's particular friend, and he may think your criticisms unkind."
"But IS Mr. Somers such a great friend of Mr. Rushbrook's?" asked Grace Nevil.
"Why, of course. Rushbrook consults him about all these things; gives him carte blanche to invite whom he likes and order what he likes, and trusts his taste and judgment implicitly."
"Then this gathering is Mr. Somers's selection?"
"How preposterous you are, Grace. Of course not. Only Somers's IDEA of what is pleasing to Rushbrook, gotten up with a taste and discretion all his own. You know Somers is a gentleman, educated at West Point—traveled all over Europe—you might have met him there; and Rushbrook—well, you have only to see him to know what HE is. Don't you understand?"
A slight seriousness; the same shadow that once before darkened the girl's charming face gave way to a mischievous knitting of her brows as she said naively, "No."