Ashwood.It was young Harcourt and his wife's own act.They preferred to take their own path and keep it.""I think,"said Mrs.Ashwood authoritatively,"that the idea of leaving those two unfortunate children to suffer and struggle on alone--out there--on the sand hills of San Francisco--was simply disgraceful!"Later that evening she was unreasonably annoyed to find that her brother,Mr.John Shipley,had taken advantage of the absence of Grant to pay marked attention to Clementina,and had even prevailed upon that imperious goddess to accompany him after dinner on a moonlight stroll upon the veranda and terraces of Los Pajaros.
Nevertheless she seemed to recover her spirits enough to talk volubly of the beautiful scenery she had discovered in her late perilous abandonment in the wilds of the Coast Range;to aver her intention to visit it again;to speak of it in a severely practical way as offering a far better site for the cottages of the young married couples just beginning life than the outskirts of towns or the bleak sand hills of San Francisco;and thence by graceful degrees into a dissertation upon popular fallacies in regard to hasty marriages,and the mistaken idea of some parents in not accepting the inevitable and making the best of it.She still found time to enter into an appreciative and exhaustive criticism upon the literature and journalistic enterprise of the Pacific Coast with the proprietor of the "Pioneer,"and to cause that gentleman to declare that whatever people might say about rich and fashionable Eastern women,that Mrs.Ashwood's head was about as level as it was pretty.
The next morning found her more thoughtful and subdued,and when her brother came upon her sitting on the veranda,while the party were preparing to return,she was reading a newspaper slip that she had taken from her porte-monnaie,with a face that was partly shadowed.
"What have you struck there,Conny?"said her brother gayly."It looks too serious for a recipe.""Something I should like you to read some time,Jack,"she said,lifting her lashes with a slight timidity,"if you would take the trouble.I really wonder how it would impress you.""Pass it over,"said Jack Shipley good-humoredly,with his cigar between his lips."I'll take it now."She handed him the slip and turned partly away;he took it,glanced at it sideways,turned it over,and suddenly his look grew concentrated,and he took the cigar from his lips.
"Well,"she said playfully,turning to him again."What do you think of it?""Think of it?"he said with a rising color."I think it's infamous!Who did it?"She stared at him,then glanced quickly at the slip."What are you reading?"she said.
"This,of course,"he said impatiently."What you gave me."But he was pointing to THE OTHER SIDE of the newspaper slip.
She took it from him impatiently and read for the first time the printing on the reverse side of the article she had treasured so long.It was the concluding paragraph of an apparently larger editorial."One thing is certain,that a man in Daniel Harcourt's position cannot afford to pass over in silence accusations like the above,that affect not only his private character,but the integrity of his title to the land that was the foundation of his fortune.When trickery,sharp practice,and even criminality in the past are more than hinted at,they cannot be met by mere pompous silence or allusions to private position,social prestige,or distinguished friends in the present."Mrs.Ashwood turned the slip over with scornful impatience,a pretty uplifting of her eyebrows and a slight curl of her lip."Isuppose none of those people's beginnings can bear looking into--and they certainly should be the last ones to find fault with anybody.But,good gracious,Jack!what has this to do with you?""With me?"said Shipley angrily."Why,I proposed to Clementina last night!"
