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Dick worked. Graham worked. Paula maintained her seclusion. The sages from the madrono grove strayed in for wordy dinners and wordy evenings, except when Paula played for them.
"She is the soul of beauty," Leo murmured. "One understands how men can die for women such as she." "And how men can live for them, and love them, the lovely things," Terrence added. "Listen, Mr. Graham, and I'll tell you a secret. We philosophers of the madroño grove, we wrecks and wastages of life here in the quiet backwater and easement of Dick's munificence, are a brotherhood of lovers.
Another time, seeking the library for Andean reference, Graham came upon Paula, sprawled gracefully over a sheet of paper on a big table and flanked by ponderous architectural portfolios, engaged in drawing plans of a log bungalow or camp for the sages of the madroño grove. "It's a problem," she sighed. "Dick says that if I build it I must build it for seven.
Another thing, Trillium Covert and Madrono Ranch were happily situated in a narrow thermal belt, so that in the frosty mornings of winter the temperature was always several degrees higher than in the rest of the valley. In fact, frost was very rare in the thermal belt, as was proved by the successful cultivation of certain orange and lemon trees.
"Listen to the sound of it: 'To hear what song the star of morning sings' oh, listen," the boy went on, his voice hushed low with beauty-love for the words: "'With perished beauty in his hands as clay, Shall he restore futurity its dream " He broke off as Paula's sisters entered, and rose shyly to greet them. Dinner that night was as any dinner at which the madroño sages were present.
From water to crest the gulches and converging spurs of this hillside in the sea were a dense mass of oaks, bays, underbrush; here and there a tall slender tree with a bark like red kid and a flirting polished leaf, at which Concha clapped her hands as at sight of an old friend and called "El Madrono."
"I reckon," said Brace dubiously; "I don't know but I'd take a little pasear into the town if I had my horse ready." "Take mine, and I'll trapse over on foot to the Ranche with Crosby after a spell. You'll find him under that big madrono, if he has not already wound himself up with his lariat by walking round it.
It's always easier to find the thing you're not looking for." "Until you want it," said Renshaw, with sudden gravity. "How pretty it looks over there," said Rosey, turning her conscious eyes to the opposite mountain. "Very." They had reached the top of the hill, and in the near distance the chimney of Madrono Cottage was even now visible.
Madrono Cottage lay at the entrance of a little canada already green with the early winter rains, and nestled in a thicket of the harlequin painted trees that gave it a name. The young man was a little relieved to find that Rosey had gone to the post-office a mile away, and that he would probably overtake her or meet her returning alone.
She answered these questions by going there at once. After thoroughly exploring the grove, and satisfying herself that it contained no other living human creature, she sat down under one of the largest trees, with a satisfactory little sigh. Miss Jo loved the madrono. It was a cleanly tree; no dust ever lay upon its varnished leaves; its immaculate shade never was known to harbor grub or insect.
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