ringing out the value of red hair, black
brows, white skin, and white frock, she was like a striking poster,
sketched in a few daring lines, with splashes of unshaded colour dashed in
between.

"How do you do, Mrs. May?" the girl amended her greeting. "I thought I
must be dreaming you."

"I'm not sure that I'm not dreaming myself," said Angela.

"I hope you haven't come here for your health?"

"I wanted to see California."

Miss Dene laughed. "That doesn't sound exciting. But perhaps it is." She
glanced again at Hilliard, to whom a porter had come for directions about
luggage. Nick was telling him that only Mrs. May's and the maid's luggage
was to go in. He intended to stop at another hotel.

"Oh, _do_ ask _That_ to lunch with you, and invite me and my friends to
your table," the girl suggested, in a stage whisper. "I never saw anything
so beautiful. I must know him. I've been seeking a hero for my new book
which I'm going to write about California, and I feel he's the one. Pity
the sorrows of the poor author! If you don't," and she laughed to take
away the sting, "I'll tell every one who you are. The reporters will get
you--as they have me. But I liked it, and you wouldn't."

Angela wondered why she had ever admired red-haired women; and as for
long, narrow green eyes, she now thought them hideous. She was sure, in
spite of the laugh, that Miss Dene was capable of keeping her word.

"I intended to ask him to lunch with me in any case," she said calmly; and
this was true. But it was to have been a repetition of yesterday; quiet
and peaceful, and idyllic. "He is a Mr. Hilliard who has--been detailed by
a friend of my father's to show me some places he knows. That's his car.
If you and your friends would care to join us, I should be delighted of
course." Then she turned away, moving back a step or two nearer the edge
of the veranda, and thus closer to Nick.

"I hope you mean to have lunch with me here, Mr. Hilliard?" she said.

He looked up, his eyes asking if she really wanted him, or if politeness
dictated the invitation. Hers gave no cue, so he did the simplest and most
direct thing, which was to him the most natural thing.

"I should like to, very much," he said. "But you've found friends. I
could come back afterward, and take you around Santa Barbara, unless----"

"One of the friends was glad when she heard you being invited," Theo Dene
broke in. "And the other friends are so new, Mrs. May hasn't met them