Emerson Hough

“ Midway Point, Pebble Beach, Carmel, the matchless cliffs of Point Lobos—in all the world there is not so much sheer beauty in a like number of miles. The Amalfi Drive of Italy, touted the world over, is not comparable to it. The sea and the mountains, joining at a coast-line of endless and countless pictures of which not one resembles the other intimately, yet which are all alike, combine here to offer human beings the great and healing lesson of sheer beauty. ”

“ I can't understand all that sort of thing.”
“Naturally you do find—that sort of thing—difficult; I can believe that.”
“Yes. But for any real man there must come a time when that sort of thing must end! A woman is too dear if she costs a man his self-respect, no matter who she is. So—I will be entirely candid with you once more—I resolved not to come out here, to follow Suzanne; but I did come. Since I have been here, I have resolved to end this thing one way or the other, and end it forever.”
She looked at me straight in the eyes. “Then go and get your own decision. ”

“ Able to buy what it likes, and knowing what it does like, a vast and exigent traveling public annually comes hither on a ne plus ultra basis. After Del Monte, home! After the Monterey Drive, nothing! After the Del Monte golf, none! After the Del Monte beauty-show, nada, nada, ninguna, as the old Spaniards of Monterey would have said could they have lived so long as till today.
Had I lost Suzanne and her mother, I would have been sure to find them here. ”

“ At Del Monte youth and beauty, golf and gold, go hand in hand. Quite often I have seen several billion dollars playing execrable golf on the excellent links. Of an evening one may also see execrable dancing by the millions-measure. But the beauty of America comes hither, and to triumph in the Del Monte beauty-show at its best is to score triumph indeed.
The setting here is somewhat different from that of other regions which depend more largely on landscape, with less right. One does not employ the unconventional freedom of the mountains. ”

“ There were no attractions there excepting those not made of man. Nature alone held sway in that storm-swept spot. Why should a woman's soul seek such grim and rugged surroundings—prehistoric, unchanged from the days of the primal world? ”

“ Mother has been in terror all her life for fear we would both fall in love with the same man—there is sometimes danger of that with twins. But we're really great pals, you know—as for my falling in love with a slow one—not at all! But suppose Suzanne had taken a notion to Jimmy! ”

“ I lingered on in the Yellowstone country, making excuse to myself that the hot wine of the summer sun, the cold reaction of the night airs of the mountains, would be good. for my nerves. I said I would go angling, said I would ride, said I would climb mountains. ”

“ You don't suppose I'd want her beaux, do you, or that she would think it honorable to take one of mine? And if either of us really cared for a man, don't you suppose the other would help her out, to the very limit? I'd do anything for her. Sometimes I've thought she didn't play the man-game just exactly up to date. So—once—well—if she didn't know just how to start things coming, could you blame me if I helped her out?
“You've been calling me Suzanne. I'm Suzette. Mother calls us both Peggy. To her we're only one—she never could separate us in her own mind. ”

“ She has tried all her life to keep anyone from knowing that we're twins, because, don't you see, she wants each of us to have her own chance, although she can't always figure that there's more than one of us. After we went to Chicago, for a long time nobody knew that there were any Collingsworth twins. We left home—down South—because we were the Collingsworth twins.”
“I'm the one with the brown eyes. They say it sometimes happens that way in twins. Mother's sister, Aunt Mary, has brown eyes like mine—or mine are like those Mother came pretty near having but didn't. ”

“ After a time I announced that of course I had gone crazy.
“No,” said the extraordinary young person across the table from me, her gentle hand again on mine. "You're not crazy, but just a sort of nut, and a twenty-two-karat boob: that's all. Some men have to have picture-blocks.”
Comprehension began to dawn in my disturbed brain. “Then that is why the Suzanne challenged me to fence—why she denied everything about the—that—that time you kissed me! ”

“ Collingsworth at the hotel and was invited to stay and dance. And he did dance with Suzanne the beautiful, though when he mentioned their meeting of the morning Suzanne’s face became hurt and uncomprehending, and she left him with a challenge on her lips as he bowed himself out in bewilderment.
The Story Continues:
Chapter VIII (continued) I TOLD myself it was high time for me to go back to the city and to work. For a man ill of the disease of love, there are but two alternatives—work, or another woman. For myself there would never be another woman. Who loves the queen looks not below. ”