I
They walked rapidly up the close avenue--planted far back in the Fifties
by Ford Thornton's grandfather--the blaze of light at the end of the long
perspective growing wider and wider. As they emerged they paused for a
moment, dazzled by the scene.
The original home of the Thorntons had been of ordinary American
architecture and covered with ivy; it might have been transplanted from
some old aristocratic village in the East. Flora Thornton had maintained
that only one style of architecture was appropriate in a state settled by
the Spaniards, and famous for its missions of Moorish architecture. Fordy
loved the old house, but as he denied his wife nothing he had given her a
million, three years before the fire which so sadly diminished fortunes,
and told her to build any sort of house she pleased; if she would only
promise to live in it and not desert him twice a year for Europe.
The immense structure, standing on a knoll, bore a certain resemblance to
the Alhambra, with its heavy square towers; its arched gateways leading
into courtyards with fountains or sunken pools, the red brown of the
stucco which looked like stone and was not. To-night it was blazing with
lights of every color.
So were the ancient oaks, which were old when the Alhambra was built,
the shrubberies, the vast rose garden. The surface of the pool in the
sunken garden reflected the green or red masses of light that shot up
every few moments from the four corners of the terrace surrounding it.
On the lawn just above and to the right of the house, a platform had
been built for dancing; it was enclosed on three sides with an arbor of
many alcoves, lined with flowers, soft lights concealed in depending
clusters of oranges.
And everywhere there were people dressed in costumes, gorgeous,
picturesque, impressive, historic, or recklessly invented, but suggesting
every era when dress counted at all. They danced on the great platform to
the strains of the invisible band, strolled along the terraces above the
sunken garden, wandered through the groves and "grounds," or sat in the
windows of the great house or in its courts. All wore the little black
satin mask prescribed by Mrs. Thornton, and created an illusion that
transported the imagination far from California. Ruyler had a whimsical
sense of being on another star where the favored of the different periods
of Earth had foregathered for the night.
But there was nothing ghostly in the shrill chatter as incessant as the
twitter of the agitated birds, who found their night snatched from them
and hardly knew whether to scold or join in the chorus.