The Port of Adventure Part 15

"But you mustn't give it up. We can't stop here all day."

Sealman grinned viciously. Perhaps he, too, hungered. Certainly he was hot, and felt like a Socialist. What was this young woman that she should sit there comfortably and nag him while he was down in the dust? "I don't see any reason against our stayin' all day," said he. "And I guess the machine don't."

"Hateful little beast!" exclaimed Angela.

"Who, me or the Model?" Sealman wanted to know.

"I meant the--_alleged_--Model. She's a fraud--a horror. If only I get--somewhere--I don't care where--I'll never come out with you again, never, never!"

"You're engaged to me till the end of the month," said Sealman as firmly as if he alluded to a promise of marriage. "I've refused two other gentlemen. If you don't use the machine, you'll pay, anyhow."

Angela would have given much if she had brought Kate. To be alone with these two monsters in an uninhabited world under a blazing sun, pa.s.sionately hungry and futilely angry, was a dull adventure.

"You know perfectly well I engaged you only for three or four days," she said. "That settles it! You shall not cheat me. And since you don't seem to know what's to become of you or your car for the rest of the day, I shall decide on my own movements. I'm going to walk."

She sprang out; and Nick, awaiting developments at a safe distance of a hundred yards in the background, saw a slim gray figure separate itself from the motionless Model.

"Now's my time, I reckon," he said to himself, and started the car, which could be done from the chauffeur's seat. He drove at low speed, as if he were out to enjoy the scenery, and slowed down gently beside Angela, who was walking in the direction of Riverside. At that rate she might have reached the nearest railway station in an hour and a half.

Nick's goggles and chauffeur's hat were off. "Why, how do you do, Mrs.

May?" he asked, in his pleasant voice. "Your machine's broke down for good this time, I'm afraid. Now do let me give you a lift."

"Mr. Hilliard!" cried Angela, taken completely by surprise, as she looked up from under her sunshade. "Where are you going?"

"I've no particular choice," said Nick. "I'm only in this part of the country because this part of the country happens to be here. I'd be just as pleased if 'twas anywhere else. Where are _you_ going?"

Angela began to laugh, and could not stop laughing. Nick, seeing this, and seeing that she looked a schoolgirl of sixteen in her little motor-bonnet, ventured to laugh too.

"I was taking to the desert," she said. "But I _wanted_ to go to Riverside. Is--is this the same old story?"

She could not put her meaning more plainly, because of Mr. Hilliard's chauffeur; but Nick understood. "I've been learnin' to drive, the last few days," he said. "And I've seen you, now and then, runnin' about in that little car. It's an old acquaintance of mine. Sealman tried to sell it to me last winter. I was sort of sorry to see he'd got hold of you."

Nick was out in the road now, standing beside her, and the big yellow car was purring an invitation.

"I was sorry for _him_," said Angela. "But I'm not now. He's a cheat. He pretends I've engaged the car for a fortnight."

"I guess he won't go on along that line now he's seen who I am," remarked Nick, "because if he does, I'll make his Model an orphan. He remembers me from last winter. I'll deal with him for you, if you please."

Angela laughed again. "Thank you! He doesn't seem likely to go on very soon, along any line, does he?"

"Shouldn't wonder if that car's ball-bearings ain't broken," said the sharp-nosed chauffeur. "That's a real favourite accident of Sealman's.

We've got to know it by heart in Los Angeles. It generally happens with him--across a trolley track. Takes all day to dismount and fix up again."

"We can't go away and leave him to his fate," said Angela. "After all, he's human."

Nick could have shouted "Hurrah!" That "we" of hers told him that he had won.

"Shall we tow him to the next town?" he asked, keeping triumph out of his tone. "We'll land him in a garage. And then--if instead of his car you'll take mine to Riverside, why, I'll be mighty honoured."

"You expected me to come to grief!" she said.

"Well, I knew that Model."

"And you've been----"

"Just practising with my new machine. I thought I might as well keep around in your neighbourhood as anywhere."

"I've seen your car. But you were so goggled----"

"I hated to have you misunderstand me again, till I could explain. I thought maybe some day you'd be a little glad to see me--not for myself, but for--"

"_Myself!_" Angela finished. "Yes, I'm selfish enough to be glad now--_very_ glad. You're a friend in need."

"Then I'm happy. That's all I ask to be--just a friend in need. Will you let me drive you to Riverside?"

"I'd let you drive me--_anywhere_, to lunch. But you mustn't ask just now if I've forgiven you. It would be taking an unfair advantage of a shipwrecked mariner."

"I shouldn't think of doing such a low-down thing," protested the forest creature.

XII

THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE

Nick refrained from mentioning this to Mrs. May, but when he had last seen the Mission Inn at Riverside he had thought that he would like to come there, next time, on his wedding trip. There had been no bride in view then, or since; but now he remembered that wish. It was a good omen that fate should have made the one woman of all the world his companion to-day.

He had not expected such a wonderful stroke of luck. The little blue auto might actually have gone a whole day without mishap, or might not have collapsed until after Mrs. May had lunched alone at the Glenwood. But here they were, he and she, in his yellow car, sailing into Riverside together; he driving, Angela by his side, talking as kindly as if she had forgiven him his sins without being asked. If he had not thought it "wasn't playing fair," he would have "made believe" like a small boy building air-castles, pretending that it really was a wedding trip, and that he and his Angel were about to have their first luncheon together.

"But she'd hate me even to make believe," he said to himself. "No! It wouldn't be a fair dream to have, behind her back."

Yet it was difficult not to dream. Angela was so delighted with the garden city watched by desert hills; and she said so innocently, "What _sweet_ houses for brides and grooms! Oh, _no_ one except people in love ought to live here!" that Nick had to bang the door of his dream-house with violence. And for the first time since he had fallen in love with Angela, he began to say, "Why not--why shouldn't I try to make her care?

There are folks who think you need only to want a thing enough to get it."

She appeared to him radiant as a being from a higher planet. Never could she be content with his world, he had told himself. Dimly and wordlessly he had felt that here was a creature who had reached an orchidlike perfection through a long process of evolution, and generations of luxury.

The earth was her playground. Men in Greenland hunted seal, and in Russia beautiful animals died, merely that she should have rich fur to fold round her shoulders. In the South perfumes were distilled for her. There were whole districts engaged in weaving velvets and silks that she might have dresses worthy of her loveliness, and men spent their lives toiling in mines to find jewels for her arms and fingers, or dived under deep waters to bring up pearls for her pleasure. It was right and just that it should be so, for there was nothing under heaven fairer than she. And since such things must always have been part of her life, because she was born for them and would take them for granted, was it reasonable to hope that she would waste two thoughts on a man like Nick Hilliard, a fellow reared on hardships, who had learned to read in night schools, and had considered it promotion to punch cattle?

All this was as true to-day in Riverside as it had been in New York and New Orleans. Angela was prettier than ever in the simple dress she wore for motoring, and the gray silk cap that framed her face, making a halo of her pale gold hair. Her dainty and expensive clothes were a part of her individuality, as its petals are of a rose; and she appeared to think of them no more than a nun thinks of her veil. But Nick felt this morning that Angela had come down from her shining heights to be human with him.

She laughed like a schoolgirl, in sheer pleasure of motion which the big car gave after martyrdom with the Model. She had travelled all over the Old World, yet she said there was nothing anywhere prettier than Riverside; no such petticoated palms as those that trailed the gray fans of other years down to their feet like the feathers of giant owls; no such pepper-trees; no such cypresses even in Italy, as these standing black as burnt-out torches against the desert sky; no such rose-covered bungalows; and, above all, no hotel so quaint as the Mission Inn.

The hour for luncheon was past, but Nick ordered flowers and a feast for a dream-bride. Then, while it was preparing, the two walked in the garden court and under pergolas where bunches of wistaria, lit from above by the sun, hung like thousands of amethyst lanterns.

"I shall build a house like this in miniature," said Angela, half to herself. "I can't have the shrines and the 'Mission' Arches with the bell-windows; but I can have the court and the arcades and the pergolas; and a well and lots of fountains. Inside there shall be walls of natural wood, and great beams across the ceilings, and big brick chimneys--'Mission' furniture too, and Indian rugs and pottery. I can hardly wait to begin that house!"

"Where will it be?" Nick asked, afraid of the answer.

"In California somewhere," she said.