The Port of Adventure Part 18

"As soon as I wake up. Will that do?"

"That will do. And let it depend on your dreams. I'll trust my luck to them. Because dreams are in the country of make-believe; sometimes they are good--so good they make you want to go on and on. Besides, there'll be the Morehouse letter. I bank on that. But more on the dreams."

The letter had come. Angela found it when she got back to her hotel, and meant to read it at once, as a letter from so important a man deserved.

But Nick's package was in her hand, and she was tempted to untie the gold string.

Inside was a fancy bottle of perfume, bound round with quant.i.ties of narrow rose-coloured ribbon.

"Parfait d'Amour. Made of California Flowers," announced the blossomy label. And Angela broke into laughter, repeating the name aloud, "Parfait d'Amour!"

She had laughed very often that day.

"He knew I wouldn't give it back to him," she thought. "That would be worse than keeping it and saying nothing."

She put the bottle down on her dressing-table, and took up the letter from Mr. Morehouse the banker. It was a pleasant letter, extremely satisfactory from Hilliard's point of view. It was evident that, in the two brothers opinion, there was no reason why she should not accept the services of Mr.

Nickson Hilliard, in seeing California. The banker, who alone knew (and would not tell) that Mrs. May was the Princess di Sereno, said "Hilliard, who was to be introduced to you in New York if my brother had not been ill, is a man your father would have approved. You are not travelling alone, I understand, but have your servant. You can trust Hilliard as a kind of glorified guide, which he wishes to be, I understand, partly out of friendship for my brother (who hoped to show you about), partly because he--in common with all of us Californians--is proud of our State, and likes nothing better than bringing its beauty spots to the notice of sympathetic strangers. That, I am sure, the daughter of my old friend Merriam must be; and I am looking forward to her arrival in San Francisco, which place I am too busy to leave at present. I hope our meeting may be soon; and wish I were a married man, that I might have the pleasure of entertaining 'Mrs. May' in my house."

When Angela had read the letter twice she let it fall, and again took up the bottle of perfume. Untying the bow of pink ribbon, she pulled out the heart-shaped gla.s.s stopper, and breathed the fragrance of "Parfait d'Amour, made from California flowers."

The name might be laughable, but the fragrance was exquisite as the sweet air among the orange groves.

Angela sighed, without knowing that she sighed, as she put the bottle down and pushed it away.

She did not even look at it again until she was ready to switch off the electric light, and try to sleep, after Kate had finished her ministrations. Then, once more, Mrs. May sniffed daintily at the "Parfait d'Amour," as a bird hovers near a tempting crumb thrown by a hand it fears. She wondered what flowers made up this sweetness, so different from any perfume she had known.

"It's California," she said to herself. "Essence of California."

Long after she had gone to bed, Angela lay awake, not restless, but vaguely excited, as she listened to a mouse in the hinterland of the wall, and thought her own thoughts, that floated from subject to subject. But always she could smell the perfume which--or she imagined it--filled the room with its sweetness. It was a pity that the scent had been given such a silly name!

"If the people of this country can be unconventional when they like, why shouldn't _I_ be unconventional, if I like?" she asked of the darkness.

"It's so gay and amusing to make believe, and so--beautiful." It occurred to her that she had just begun to live. Now a door had opened before her eyes, and she saw a new world that was big and glorious, ready to give her a welcome.

"There's something in being a married woman, and going about as I choose,"

she thought, "even if it is only in the country of make-believe. Why shouldn't I do what he asks me to do? I'm only Mrs. May, whom n.o.body knows! And it would be _fun_. I haven't had any fun since I was a little, little girl."

Perhaps Nick had been right to trust his luck to her dreams; or perhaps it was the influence of the letter. In any case, at eight o'clock next morning, Angela, with her hair hanging over her shoulders, and dreams still in her eyes, was ringing up Mr. Hilliard by telephone at the Alexandria Hotel.

"It's only to say that you may take me--and Kate--and the cat--and some luggage--to Santa Barbara this morning. That is, if you still want to? Oh, thanks! You're _very_ kind. It's settled _only_ about to-day, you know!

Yes. Ten o'clock will suit me."

She hummed a dance-tune while Kate dressed her. And the room was still sweet with the fragrance of that strange perfume, "Parfait d'Amour made from California flowers."

She sat beside Nick in the yellow car, Kate (and black Timmy in a basket) behind with the sharp-nosed youth whom Hilliard called his "a.s.sistant."

There was also luggage--enough to last for a few days, the rest had been sent on by train to San Francisco.

Nick enjoyed hearing Angela exclaim, "This is like Algeciras!" "That's like the Italian Riviera!" as the car ran on. It seemed wonderful that she should have seen all the most beautiful places in Europe, that she should hold their pictures in her mind now, comparing them with these new ones, yet that her heart should be in the New World--_his_ world.

Near Santa Barbara the mountains came crowding down to the sea, as at Mentone; and on the horizon floated islands, mysterious as the mirage of Corsica seen from the Italian sh.o.r.e at sunrise. Over there, Nick told her, was a grotto, painted in many lovely colours; and boats dived into it on the crest of a wave. He had not heard of the Blue Grotto at Capri, but she described it; and so they went on, each with something to tell that the other did not know.

Two new battleships were trying their speed in the channel between Santa Barbara and the islands, and as the car turned into the park of the hotel the rivals raced into sight. Angela's eyes were dazzled with the brilliant sunshine, the blue of the sea, and the flaming colour of the geranium borders that burned like running fire the length of the mile-long drive.

The veranda was crowded with people, but thinking only of the great ships in the bay she was conscious of seeing no one until a voice exclaimed, "Why, Princess, what a surprise to meet you here!"

It was a voice she knew, and if she could have stepped back into the car, pulled her motor-veil over her eyes, and asked Nick Hilliard to drive away, she would have been glad. But one does not do these things. One faces emergencies, and makes the best of them. Angela had been foolish, she told herself, not to think of running across somebody she knew. If she wished to hide herself, she must be more prudent; but for this time it was too late. There was Theodora Dene, of all people, waiting to meet her at the top of the steps!

"Oh, bother!" Angela had just time to whisper, before she found herself shaking hands with a tall, red-haired, hatless girl in a white dress. Theo Dene never wore a hat unless it were absolutely necessary, for her hair was her great attraction. It was splendid in the sun, as she came out of the shade to stand in the blaze of light, shaking Angela's hand and sending a long-lashed glance to Nick. She never looked at a woman if there were a man worth looking at within eye-shot. But she had no hypocrisy about this. She did not pretend to be a friend of women, though she was nice to them if they did not interfere with her and there was nothing better to do. She was twenty-eight, and confessed to twenty-four. She danced as well as a professional, sang French songs in what she called a "twilight voice," dressed better than most married women, did daring things, and had written two books which shocked Puritans. Some of her own experiences had been worked into her novels, which made them read realistically; and clergymen in England and America had preached against them; so, of course, they were a great success and sold enormously. Miss Dene herself was also a great success. She went where she liked, alone if she liked, and during a visit to Rome she had lured desirable men from ladies who were engaged in flirting with them. Angela, who was not flirting with any one, had been amused by the strange girl, but now she would have preferred a chance encounter with almost anybody else.

"Please call me Mrs. May," she whispered, as they shook hands. "I don't want to be known by the other name."

The tall young woman in white took in the situation, or a view of it, and the long green eyes (which she loved and copied for her heroines) smiled in a way that fascinated some people and displeased others. Angela thought that, with the strong sunlight bringing 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 repet.i.tion 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 yet.

You shall be introduced all together in a bunch."

Of course, at that Nick came up the steps and joined Angela. He had a curious feeling as if he ought to be defending her from something; and at the same time a sensation of relief when he heard her once again called "Mrs. May." "Princess" was only a sort of pet name, no doubt. That was what he had hoped when the word caught his startled attention. He would not like to have her turn into a real princess. An angel she was for him, and might be, without seeming hopelessly remote somehow; but the pedestal of a princess was cold as a block of marble.

The poster-simile did not occur to Nick; but he thought that the red-haired girl with the self-conscious eyes, standing beside Mrs. May, was like a coloured lithograph in a magazine, compared with a delicate painting in a picture gallery, such as he loved to go and see in San Francisco. Miss Dene's peculiar attraction, strong for many men, left him cold, although he might have felt it if he had never seen Angela.

"I'm travelling with Mrs. Harland, and her brother, Mr. Falconer, in his private car," Theo explained. She turned to them. "Mrs. May won't mind my claiming her as a friend I hope. She was immensely nice to me in Rome. And we've met in London, too. I don't know why I was surprised to see her.

Every one comes to this country. And Mr. Hilliard, perhaps, you both know?"

"We have met," said John Falconer, whom Nick had praised yesterday as the "typical" man of California. He put out his hand, and Nick took it, pleased and somewhat surprised by the recognition. For he was in his own eyes an insignificant person compared to John Falconer, who had done things worth doing in the world.

Angela remembered Nick's eulogy of the man. He was about forty, as tall as Hilliard, though built more heavily. Nick was clean shaven, and Falconer wore a close-cut brown beard, which gave him somewhat the air of a naval officer, though his face was not so deeply tanned. His features were strong, and behind his clear eyes thoughts seemed to pa.s.s as clouds move under the surface of a deep lake. Such a man was born to be a leader. No one could look at him and not see that.