I am a virgin!

"Of course, dear Isabel, I would not write like this about Vicky to any
one on earth but yourself. But she is on your hands, so to speak, and I
feel you should have some sort of comprehension of her. To understand
her fully is impossible. She is unhappy, that is the main thing--what
with all I have intimated, and the great change in her fortunes--I can
hardly imagine Vicky without Capheaton and the reflected glory of
'Elton Gwynne'; and, no doubt, she finds California an exile and has
realized by this time that she can be of little use to Jack. Better make
a fortune for her in your wonderful American way and bring them both
home."

XXXII

Isabel called up Mrs. Hofer on the telephone, and after being switched
off and on half a dozen times, and crossed wires and all the other
mishaps peculiar to the California telephone service had reduced both to
a state of furious indifference, Mrs. Hofer accepted Miss Otis's
inability to go down to San Francisco until the day of the party, and
her promise to pay the visit during Christmas week, with equal
philosophy.

The party was to be on the night of the 24th, and Isabel did not see
Gwynne again until the evening of the same day. Judge Leslie went to
Santa Barbara to spend the holidays with his son, and his pupil to
Burlingame and Menlo Park for a week. After the polo and various other
sports at the former resort, with a set that bore an outline resemblance
to the leisure class of his own country, the gay life at the Club and
the multitude of pretty girls always flitting amid compact masses of
flowers, he found the now unfashionable borough of Menlo Park somewhat
dull; although he had good snipe-shooting on the marsh with his host,
Mr. Trennahan. The whole valley, however, had a peculiar charm for him;
when riding alone past the fields of ancient oaks with the great
mountains on either side, almost a sense of possession. For all this
magnificent and richly varied sweep of land, now cut up into a few large
estates and an infinite number of small ones, into towns, and villages,
hamlets, and even cities, had once been the Rancho El Pilar, and the
property of his Mexican ancestor, Don Jose Argueello. He knew that in
those old days it must have looked like a vast English park, and he felt
some resentment that his ancestors had not had the wit to hold fast to
it until his time came to inherit.

Mrs. Trennahan's father, Don Roberto Yorba, had bought a square