The Port of Adventure Part 16

"You mean it?"

"Oh, yes! I don't know where, yet. I'm falling in love with the South now, but I won't let myself fall too deep in, till I've seen the North."

"If you're in love, _can_ you keep yourself from falling deeper in?" said Nick. "I don't think I could; I'd sure have to let myself go."

It had been so good to see the forest creature at the moment when he was needed most, that Angela had melted toward him as snow melts in the spring sun. She had not only forgiven, but forgotten--for the moment--that there had been things to forgive; so she answered this question of his, humanly and simply. "I wonder?" she said. "If it were not a question of a country, but a person? I can't tell. I've never fallen deep in." Then she pulled herself up abruptly. "Luncheon must be ready," she went on in a changed voice. "I'm starving, aren't you?"

"Starving!" Nick answered mechanically. But he was saying in his heart, "She's never been in love! Hooray!"

The thought shot new colour into existence. "I'll pull the world up by the roots to get her," he thought. "And she wants to live in California!

Maybe, if I try to make myself all over again, a little worthier--a little more like what she's used to, at last she----" It seemed sacrilege to finish the sentence.

It was for this end, to "make himself more like what she was used to,"

that he had bought the new clothes in New York. They had not been a success. But, luckily for his happiness to-day, he did not know how Angela had laughed when she saw the shiny shoes outside his door.

Never was a luncheon like that which they ate together in the great cool dining-room, whence everybody else had vanished long ago. Angela sat facing one of the big windows, and a green light filtering through rose-arbours gave her skin the luminous, pearly reflections that artists love to paint. Up in the minstrels' gallery a harpist played, softly, old Spanish airs.

"Before you decide where to live, will you come to my part of the country?" Nick asked, his eyes drinking in the picture. "There's a ranch you'd admire, I think. Not mine. I'd like you to see that, too. But the one I mean is a show place. It belongs to Mrs. Gaylor, the widow of my old boss. She's a mighty nice woman, and handsome as a picture. She's pretty lonely and likes visitors. If she invites you, will you come?"

"Perhaps, some day," said Angela, in a mood to humour him, because everything round her was so charming that to refuse a request would have sounded a jarring note. Not that she had the slightest intention of visiting Mrs. Gaylor, the widow of Mr. Hilliard's "old boss."

"But I've mapped out a programme for myself already," she went on, "which may take a long time, for if I like a place very much I shan't want to hurry away. For instance, maybe I shall have a whim to come back here and stay a week or a fortnight. You see, some one I loved dearly, long ago, lived in California, and there are parts of the country I want to visit, for his sake as well as my own."

This was a blow in spite of her late confession. But in a moment he took courage. If this girl (who looked eighteen and couldn't be much over twenty) had loved a man long ago, that man must have been a father or an uncle. And with a sense of relief he remembered the miniature frame.

"Would you tell me what parts you want to see most of all?" he asked, with an air of humility which was engaging in a man so big, so strong, and brown.

Angela's eyes smiled mischief.

"Why do you want to know?" she catechized him. "I think you'll admit that after--after several things which have happened, I've a right to ask--a question, before I answer yours."

"I know. You're afraid I'll want to be following you again," said Nick.

"But following wasn't in my mind. I want to _take_ you in my new automobile."

She stared in amazement.

"You extraordinary person! As if I _could_ do such a thing!"

"Why not?" He asked it meekly, looking boyish, ready to be rebuked and snubbed--and yet to make his point. "I expect, when you were at home--wherever that was--you were used to travelling sometimes with your maid, in a motor, and n.o.body else except your chauffeur?" (Nick p.r.o.nounced this word rather originally, but this was a detail.)

"Certainly. That's entirely different."

"Now you've got a cat too."

Angela broke into laughter. This man, and this day, were unique. She was delighted with herself for forgiving Mr. Hilliard. Because, of course, she could unforgive him again at any minute, if it seemed really best.

When a woman laughs at your _bon mot_, there is hope. There is also happiness. Nick felt both. They came in a gust, like a spray of perfume in his face, taking his breath away. "I believe she'll do it," he said to that sympathetic chum--himself, who was taking the kindliest interest in his love affairs. "It's up to me now."

"And in my car you'd have two shuvvers. What with us both, and your Irish maid, and your black cat, wouldn't we be enough to take care of you?"

"You're not a real chauffeur," said Angela.

"I've been qualifying for the article, and if I do say it myself I'm as smart a driver this minute as you could find in California."

Angela shook her head. "You amuse me, because you're quite, quite different from any man I ever saw, but--I'm afraid I can't engage you as my chauffeur."

"Not if I could give you a first-rate character, ma'am?"

"Don't call me 'ma'am'!" Angela reminded him. "It's too realistic, Mr.

Would-be-Chauffeur."

"I call you 'Angel' behind your back. You can't say you won't be an angel, because 'twould be irreligious."

"I used to play at being one when I was a wee thing," said Angela, her eyes far away. "Bed was the sky. The pillows and sheets were white clouds tumbling all round me. I could bury myself in them. I made believe I was disguised as a child by day, but the door of dreams let me into heaven."

"It mostly does," Nick mumbled. Then he said aloud, "If you used to like making believe then, wouldn't you just try it for a little while now? Make believe I'm going to take you round in my car, and I'll tell you some of the things that will happen to us."

"Well--it couldn't do any harm to make believe just for a few minutes, could it?" Angela wondered if she were flirting with the forest creature.

But no. Certainly not. She never flirted, not even with the men of her own world, as most of the young women she knew were in the habit of doing.

This was not flirting. It was only playing--and letting him play a little too--at "making believe."

"What would happen to us?" she asked.

"Well, shall we begin with to-day--what's left of it?--or skip on to to-morrow?"

"I hate putting off things till to-morrow--if they're pleasant."

"So do I, and this would be pleasant. When you'd seen all you wanted of the Mission Inn, I'd drive you along Magnolia Avenue, that's walled in with those owl-palms in gray petticoats. As you go down it looks like a high gray wall in a fort, with bunches of green at the top, and roses trained over it. We'd run up Mount Rubidoux, that has a grand, curlycue sort of road to the top, where there's one of the old Mission bells, and a cross, and a plaque in memory of the best Father of 'em all, Juniperra Serra. Rubidoux's one of those yellow desert mountains, the biggest of the lot, with a view of Riverside, and miles of orange groves like a big garden at its foot. We'd sit up there awhile, and I'd tell you a story of General Fremont, when he pa.s.sed in the grand old days. Then we'd spin on to Redlands, and see the park and the millionaires' houses----"

"I like the lovers' bungalows best."

"Do you? Would you like one better for yourself?"

"A thousand times!" But she broke that silken thread quickly. "Go on. What would we do next?"

"Oh, next an orange-packing factory. You'd enjoy seeing the oranges running like mad down a sloping trough, pretending they're all equal, till the boys watching spy out the bruised ones that are sneaking along, and pitch 'em away before they can say 'knife.' By and by the small, no-account oranges are sent about their business, which is to play second fiddle, and the big, n.o.ble-fellows, who're worthy to succeed, fall first into the hands of girls, who wrap them up in squares of white paper. My faith, but those girls' hands go fast! It makes you feel like heat-lightning just to watch 'em fly! Anybody who wants to can order a box of picked oranges, each wrapped in paper, with a lady's name and a verse in her honour printed on it. Lots of fellows do that. When you'd seen the factory I'd drive you back to Los Angeles, and we'd get there after dark.

But there's a searchlight on my car equal to a light on a battleship, and her name alone's enough to illuminate the road. I've christened her Bright Angel."

He paused for half a second; but if the a.n.a.logy meant anything to his companion she did not choose that he should know. "And then?" she said.

"Then--if you'd seen enough of Los Angeles, I'd ask you to let your Irish girl pack up. And I'd start off with you--for good. I mean, you and the maid, and the cat, and Billy. Billy's the other shuvver, besides me. I'd take you to Santa Barbara."

"That's one of the places on my programme."

"And Monterey."

"Another of my places. But I want to go to the Yosemite. You couldn't motor me there."

"I could guide you. I've known horses longer than I've known motors. And I know the Yosemite. Once I got hurt in a kind of accident. I wasn't good for much, for a while afterward. And as I couldn't do any work I went and loafed in the Yosemite Valley. I'd always wanted to go. It was grand. But it would be heaven to see it again with y--with an angel."