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.
A glance into the bathroom, with its sunken Roman bath and descending2 marble steps, was fruitless, as were the glances he sent into Paula’s wardrobe room and dressing3 room. He passed the short, broad stairway that led to her empty window-seat divan4 in what she called her Juliet Tower, and thrilled at sight of an orderly disarray5 of filmy, pretty, lacy woman’s things that he knew she had spread out for her own sensuous6 delight of contemplation. He fetched up for a moment at a drawing easel, his reiterant cry checked on his lips, and threw a laugh of recognition and appreciation7 at the sketch8, just outlined, of an awkward, big-boned, knobby, weanling colt caught in the act of madly whinneying for its mother.
“Where’s my Boy in Breeches?” he shouted before him, out to the sleeping porch; and found only a demure9, brow-troubled Chinese woman of thirty, who smiled self-effacing embarrassment10 into his eyes.
This was Paula’s maid, Oh Dear, so named by Dick, many years before, because of a certain solicitous11 contraction12 of her delicate brows that made her appear as if ever on the verge13 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 schooner14, 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 stammered15; 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 cochère just as a ranch17 limousine18 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, 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 minutes 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 topping 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 precisely19 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 droop20 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 chestnut21, 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 pronounced. Both noses were large-nostriled and sensitive. And both mouths, while generously proportioned, carried the impression of girlish sweetness and chastity along with the muscles that could draw 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 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 Charming. Forrest’s seemed a more efficient and formidable organism, more dangerous to other life, stouter-gripped on its own life.
Forrest threw a glance at his wrist watch as he talked, but in that glance, without pause or fumble22 of focus, with swift certainty of correlation23, he read 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 simply 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 prefer, Graham?”
“Oh, anything, old man.”
“English?—Australian?—McClellan?—Mexican?” Dick insisted.
“McClellan, if it’s no trouble,” Graham surrendered.
They sat their horses by the side of the road and watched the last of the herd24 beginning its long journey to Chili25 disappear around the bend.
“I see what you’re doing—it’s great,” Graham 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 steamships26 hadn’t been invented. That’s what revolutionized the game down there.”
“Besides, I was a mere16 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.”
“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 itched28, but that your chief weakness lay in that you could afford to solace29 the itching30.”
“Over there are the fish ponds,” Dick said, indicating with a nod of his head to the right an invisible area beyond the lilacs. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity to catch a mess of trout31, or bass32, or even catfish33. You see, I’m a miser34. I love to make things work. There may be a justification35 for the eight-hour labor36 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 irrigates37 a score of mountain meadows before it makes the plunge38 and is clarified to crystal clearness in the next few rugged39 miles; and at the plunge from the highlands it generates half the power and all the lighting40 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-worshipers, 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 hoofs41 on concrete, followed by a mighty42 splash and an outburst of women’s cries and laughter. Quickly the cries turned to alarm, accompanied by the sounds of a prodigious43 splashing and floundering as of some huge, drowning beast. Dick bent44 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.
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 spillway, sheened with an inch of smooth-slipping water. The sides were perpendicular45. The lower end, roughly corrugated46, sloped out gently to solid footing. Here, in distress47 that was consternation48, and in fear that was panic, excitedly bobbed up and down a cowboy in bearskin chaps, vacuously49 repeating the exclamation50, “Oh God! Oh God!"—the first division of it rising in inflection, the second division inflected fallingly with despair. On the edge of the farther side, facing him, in bathing suits, legs dangling51 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, vertical52 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 sleek53, wet, satin pads of the great horse’s straining shoulder muscles. The white toes of her dug for a grip into the smooth sides of the animal, vainly seeking a hold on the ribs54 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 gladiatorial struggles. She reminded him of some Dresden china figure set absurdly small and light and strangely on the drowning back of a titanic55 beast. So dwarfed56 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 tangled57, seemed tangled in the black mane of the stallion. But it was her face that smote58 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 peril59. 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 happened 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 swoop60 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 disappeared together beneath the surface, to rise together, a second later, the stallion still pawing the air with fore-hoofs the size of dinner plates, the rider still clinging to the sleek, satin-coated muscles. Graham thought, with a gasp61, 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 quenched62 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, darting63 between the ears and clutching the foretop. The next moment, as the stallion balanced out horizontally in obedience64 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 noted65, 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 bravado66, was more in aesthetic67 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 horizontal position once it had been attained68, 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 of chain between the jaws69. But Paula, still astride, leaned forward, imperiously took the lead-part from the cowboy, whirled Mountain Lad around to face Forrest, and saluted70.
“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.
“Paula—Mrs. Forrest—the boy girl, the child that never grew up, the grittiest puff72 of rose-dust that was ever woman.”
“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 breeders 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 placidly74. “That’s Paula’s luck. She’s tough to kill. Why, I’ve had her under shell-fire where she was actually 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 justified75 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 gouged76 on the price yet.”
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1
jingling
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| 叮当声 | |
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descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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dressing
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| n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料 | |
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divan
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| n.长沙发；（波斯或其他东方诗人的）诗集 | |
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disarray
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| n.混乱，紊乱，凌乱 | |
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sensuous
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| adj.激发美感的；感官的，感觉上的 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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demure
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| adj.严肃的；端庄的 | |
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embarrassment
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| n.尴尬；使人为难的人(事物)；障碍；窘迫 | |
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solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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contraction
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| n.缩略词，缩写式，害病 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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schooner
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| n.纵帆船 | |
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stammered
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| v.结巴地说出( stammer的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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ranch
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| n.大牧场，大农场 | |
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limousine
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| n.豪华轿车 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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droop
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| v.低垂，下垂；凋萎，萎靡 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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fumble
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| vi.笨拙地用手摸、弄、接等，摸索 | |
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correlation
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| n.相互关系，相关，关连 | |
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herd
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| n.兽群，牧群；vt.使集中，把…赶在一起 | |
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chili
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| n.辣椒 | |
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steamships
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| n.汽船，大轮船( steamship的名词复数 ) | |
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flirted
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| v.调情，打情骂俏( flirt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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itched
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| v.发痒( itch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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solace
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| n.安慰；v.使快乐；vt.安慰(物)，缓和 | |
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itching
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| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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trout
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| n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属) | |
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bass
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| n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴 | |
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catfish
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| n.鲶鱼 | |
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miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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irrigates
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| 灌溉( irrigate的第三人称单数 )； 冲洗（伤口） | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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rugged
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| adj.高低不平的，粗糙的，粗壮的，强健的 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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prodigious
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| adj.惊人的，奇妙的；异常的；巨大的；庞大的 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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perpendicular
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| adj.垂直的，直立的；n.垂直线，垂直的位置 | |
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corrugated
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| adj.波纹的；缩成皱纹的；波纹面的；波纹状的v.（使某物）起皱褶(corrugate的过去式和过去分词) | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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consternation
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| n.大为吃惊，惊骇 | |
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vacuously
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| adv.无意义地，茫然若失地，无所事事地 | |
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50
exclamation
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| n.感叹号，惊呼，惊叹词 | |
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51
dangling
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| 悬吊着( dangle的现在分词 )； 摆动不定； 用某事物诱惑…； 吊胃口 | |
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52
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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53
sleek
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| adj.光滑的，井然有序的；v.使光滑，梳拢 | |
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54
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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titanic
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| adj.巨人的，庞大的，强大的 | |
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56
dwarfed
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| vt.（使）显得矮小（dwarf的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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57
tangled
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| adj. 纠缠的，紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词 | |
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58
smote
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| v.猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去式 ) | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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61
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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quenched
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| 解（渴）( quench的过去式和过去分词 )； 终止（某事物）； （用水）扑灭（火焰等）； 将（热物体）放入水中急速冷却 | |
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63
darting
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| v.投掷，投射( dart的现在分词 )；向前冲，飞奔 | |
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64
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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65
noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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bravado
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| n.虚张声势，故作勇敢，逞能 | |
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aesthetic
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| adj.美学的，审美的，有美感 | |
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attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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69
jaws
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| n.口部；嘴 | |
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70
saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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71
queried
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| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
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72
puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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73
stunts
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| n.惊人的表演( stunt的名词复数 )；（广告中）引人注目的花招；愚蠢行为；危险举动v.阻碍…发育[生长]，抑制，妨碍( stunt的第三人称单数 ) | |
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74
placidly
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| adv.平稳地，平静地 | |
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75
justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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76
gouged
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| v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出… | |
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