"I don't believe they ever sound like platitudes."
"Hm! I won't undertake to discuss that point, knowing my limitations. What next? He must have suffered. That gives a man weight, as the sculptors say. My quartette will be much more interesting to the next divinity than they are to me. Then of course he must have charming manners and an agreeable voice: I could not stand the brain of a Bismark in the skull of an Apollo if he had a nasal American voice. I believe that's all. I'm not so particular about looks, so long as he's neither small nor fat."
"And if you found all that wouldn't you marry it?"
"N-o-o--I don't know--but I'd be engaged a good long time. You see I want to be a belle for years and years."
"And what is to become of the poor men when you are through with them?"
"Oh, they'll get over it. I shall. Why shouldn't they?"
"I thought you said once you wanted to marry a statesman."
"Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don't. I'll consider that question ten years hence. I want to be a perfectly famous belle first."
"Oh, I must have a season in New York, and another in Washington, and another in London. The gods have given me all the gifts, and I intend to make the most of them. Now let's read a chapter of Motley out loud, and if I jump off to other things you jerk me back. Let's finish Pater, though. It's like lying under a cascade of bubbles on a hot summer's day. My brains are addled between trying to be well read and trying to keep four men from proposing. You read aloud, and I'll brush my hair. No, I'll embroider on papa's mouchoir case; I've been at it for thirteen months. Oh, by the bye, I didn't tell you that I had a brilliant idea. It darted into my head just as I was dropping off last night. I forgot to speak about it to papa this morning, but I will to-night. It's this: I'm going to give a ball at Del Monte. Take everybody down on a special train. Don't you think it will be a change? The spring has come so early that we can have the grounds lit up with Chinese lanterns; and there may be some Eastern men there. There often are. So much the better for my ball--and me. Now read."
Trennahan arrived late in the evening, and went directly to the Yorbas' to dinner. He saw Magdaléna alone for a moment before the others came downstairs, and his delight at meeting her again was so boyish that she could hardly have recalled his eventful forty years had she tried. He was one of those men, who, having a great deal of nervous energy, are possessed briefly by the high animal spirits of youth when in unusual mental and physical tenor,--with coincident obliteration of the bills of time. Trennahan was in the highest spirits this evening. He was delighted to get back to California, delighted to see Magdaléna, whom he thought improved and almost pretty in her smart frock. Moreover, no woman had ever seemed to him half so sincere, half so well worth the loving, as this girl who said so little and breathed so much.