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 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHORS 
 
 LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA 
 
 ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER 
 
 LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER 
 
 MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR 
 
 THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR 
 
 THE GUESTS op HERCULES 
 
 THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA 
 
 THE G OLDEN SILENCE 
 
 THE CAR OF DESTINY 
 
 THE MOTOR MAID 
 
 THE CHAPERON 
 
 SET IN SILVER 
 
 THE HEATHER MOON
 
 " Nick thought her adorable in her gray motor bonnet
 
 e lort OT Adventure 
 
 y C.N. tf AM. Williams on 
 
 Authors of 
 Set in Silver "The Gutt of Hercules" Etc.. 
 
 Garden City, New York 
 DOUBLEDAY.PAGE tf COMPANY
 
 Copyright, 1913, by 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of 
 
 translation into foreign languages, 
 
 including the Scandinavian 
 
 COPYRIGHT, igiO, igll, BY JAS. HORSBURGH, JR.
 
 TO 
 THREE FRIENDS IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 2228349
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. IN A GARDEN 3 
 
 II. NICK 12 
 
 III. THE ANNIVERSARY 25 
 
 IV. A GIRL IN MOURNING .... 30 
 V. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT . . 50 
 
 VI. WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED . . 59 
 VII. A POLICE MYSTERY . ... 78 
 VIII. THE GOLD BAG COMEDY .... 88 
 IX. THE LAST ACT OF THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 105 
 X. WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING . 114 
 XI. THE MAN AT THE W T HEEL. . . . 124 
 XII. THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY OF MAKE- 
 BELIEVE 134 
 
 XIII. FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT . 165 
 
 XIV. THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL . . 178 
 XV. THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK . . 188 
 
 XVI. ANGELA AT HER WORST .... 203 
 
 XVII. SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE . . . .212 
 
 XVIII. LA DONNA E MOBILE 218 
 
 XIX. THE CITY OF ROMANCE . . .227 
 
 vii
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL . 241 
 "WHO Is MRS. MAY?" . . . .249 
 
 THE Box OF MYSTERY .... 260 
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 271 
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE . . 288 
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY .... 305 
 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN . . 317 
 
 SIMEON HARP 328 
 
 THE DARK CLOUD IN THE CRYSTAL . 335 
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS . . . 344 
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN . . 356 
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL . . 377 
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 397
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 "Nick thought her adorable in her gray 
 
 motor bonnet " . . . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 "Santa Barbara Mission, with its history and 
 
 romance " 170 
 
 "Angela was enchanted with the peninsula of 
 
 Monterey" 214 
 
 " They weren't trees, but people, either nymphs 
 
 or witches ....... 216 
 
 " The world was a sea, billowing with mountains " 296 
 
 IX
 
 i
 
 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 ON a great ship a woman sailed away from the Old 
 World, wishing to forget. In her mind was the thought 
 of a far-off place toward which she was travelling. There 
 were no figures in this mental picture. She painted it as 
 a mere flowery background; for she was very tired of 
 people. 
 
 In the New World, a man lived and worked, and 
 dreamed when he had time. 
 
 Between this woman and this man lay six thousand 
 miles of land and sea. They were two, among many 
 millions, and they did not know of each other's existence. 
 There was no visible reason why they ever should know, 
 or why they should ever meet. Yet, sometimes when the 
 moon shone on the sea, the woman said to herself that the 
 bright path paving the water with gold seemed to lead on 
 and on beyond the horizon, as if it might go all the way 
 to the Golden Gate. And the Golden Gate is the Port 
 of Adventure, where every unexpected thing can happen.
 
 IN A GARDEN 
 
 "I WONDER what makes Nick so late?" Carmen 
 Gaylor thought, hovering in the doorway between the 
 dim, cool hall and the huge veranda that was like an 
 out-of-doors drawing-room. 
 
 Though she spoke English well almost as well as if 
 she had not been born in Spain and made her greatest 
 successes in the City of Mexico Carmen thought in 
 Spanish, for her heart was Spanish, and her beauty too. 
 
 She was always handsome, but she was beautiful as she 
 came out into the sunset gold which seemed meant for 
 her, as stage lights are turned on for the heroine of a 
 play; and there was something about Carmen which 
 suggested strong drama. Even the setting in which 
 she framed herself was like an ideal scene for a first act. 
 
 The house was not very old, and not really Spanish, 
 but it had been designed by an architect who knew Car- 
 men, with the purpose of giving a Spanish effect. He 
 had known exactly the sort of background to suit her, 
 a background as expensive as picturesque; a million- 
 aire husband had paid for it. There were many verandas 
 and pergolas, but this immense out-of-doors room had 
 wide archways instead of pillars, curtained with white 
 and purple passion flowers; and the creamy stucco of 
 
 3
 
 4 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 the house-wall, and the ruddy Spanish tiles, which 
 already looked mellow with age, were half hidden with 
 climbing roses and grapevines. 
 
 Three shallow steps of pansy-coloured bricks went 
 all the length of the gallery, descending to a terrace 
 floored with the same brick, which held dim tints of 
 purple, old rose, gray and yellow, almost like a faded 
 Persian rug. 
 
 When Carmen had looked past the fountain across 
 the lawn, down the path cut between pink oleanders, 
 where the man she expected ought to appear, she trailed 
 her white dress over terrace and grass to peer under 
 the green roof of the bamboo forest. It was like a 
 temple with tall pillars of priceless jade that supported a 
 roof of the same gray-green, starred in a vague pattern 
 with the jewels of sunset. Carmen did not see the beauty 
 of the magic temple, though she was conscious of her own. 
 She hated to think that Nick Billiard should keep her 
 waiting, and there was cruelty in the clutch she made 
 at a cluster of orange blossoms as she passed a long row 
 of trees in terra-cotta pots on the terrace. Under the 
 bamboos she scattered a handful of creamy petals on 
 the golden brown earth, and rubbed them into the ground 
 with the point of her bronze shoe. Then she held up her 
 hand to her face, to smell the sweetness crushed out of 
 the blossoms. 
 
 Why didn't Nick come? 
 
 There was a short cut leading from the land which 
 she had selected off her own immense ranch to sell to Nick 
 Hilliard, and this way he sometimes took if he were in a 
 hurry. But she knew that he loved the path between the
 
 IN A GARDEN 5 
 
 pink walls of oleander, and preferred to come by it, though 
 it was longer. He ought to have been with her at least 
 ten minutes ago, for she had asked him to come early. 
 She had said in the letter which she gave old Simeon Harp 
 to take to Nick, "This is your last night. There are a 
 great, great many things I want to talk to you about." 
 But there was only one thing about which she wished 
 Nick Hilliard to talk to her, and there were two reasons 
 why she expected him to talk of it to-night. 
 
 One reason was, because he was going East, and planned 
 to be gone a month, a dreadful plan which she feared and 
 detested. The second reason concerned the anniversary 
 of a certain event. Some people would have called the 
 event a tragedy, but to Carmen it had made life worth 
 living. Other people's tragedies were shadowy affairs to 
 her, if she had not to suffer from them. 
 
 It was one of her pleasures to dress beautifully, in a 
 style that might have seemed exaggerated on a different 
 type of woman, and would have been extravagant for any 
 except the mistress of a fortune. But never had Carmen 
 taken more pains than to-night, when she expected only 
 one guest. Her white chiffon and silver tissue might have 
 been a wedding gown. She adored jewellery, and had 
 been almost a slave to her love for it, until she began to 
 value something else more something which, unfort- 
 unately, her money could not buy, though she hoped 
 and prayed her face might win it. She had quantities of 
 diamonds, emeralds, and rubies her favourite stones 
 but instinct had told her that even one would spoil the 
 effect she wished to make to-night. She wore only a long 
 rope of pearls, which would have suited a bride; and as
 
 6 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 she stood in the shadow of her bamboo temple, the pearls 
 drank iridescent lights: green from the jade-coloured 
 trees, pink from roses trailing over arbours, and gold 
 from the California poppies thick among the grass. 
 
 Of course, any one of many reasonable things might 
 have happened to delay Nick. He was busy, busier even 
 than when he had been foreman of the Gaylor ranch a 
 year ago, but Carmen could not bear to think that he 
 would let mere reasonable things keep him away from 
 her, just this night of all others. For exactly a year a 
 year to-day, a year this morning, so it was already more 
 than a year she had ceased to be a slave, and she had 
 had everything she wanted, except one thing. Perhaps 
 she had that too, yet she was not sure: and she could 
 hardly wait to be sure. Nobody but Nick could make 
 her so, and he ought to be in joyful haste to do it. He 
 was not cold blooded. One could not look at Nick and 
 think him that, yet to her he sometimes seemed indiffer- 
 ent. Carmen made herself believe that it was his re- 
 spect which held him back. How desperately she 
 wanted to know! Yet there was a strange pleasure in 
 not knowing, such as she might never feel again, when 
 she was sure. 
 
 Suddenly, far off, there was a rustling in the bamboo 
 forest. A figure like a shadow, but darker than other 
 shadows, moved in the distance. Carmen's heart jumped. 
 She took a step forward, then stopped. It was not Nick 
 Hilliard after all, but old Simeon Harp, the squirrel 
 poisoner, coming from the direction of Nick's ranch, 
 bringing her a message, maybe. She felt she could not 
 possibly bear it if Nick were not coming, and she hated
 
 IN A GARDEN 7 
 
 him at the bare thought that he might send an excuse at 
 the last moment. 
 
 "What is it, Sim?" she called out sharply, as the 
 queer, gnarled figure of the old man hobbled nearer. 
 
 "Nothing, my lady," Simeon Harp answered in the 
 husky voice of one who is or has been a drunkard. " Noth- 
 ing, only I was over at Nick's finishin' up a bit of my work, 
 and he said, would I tell you he was sorry to be late. He's 
 had somebody with him all afternoon, and no time to pack 
 till just now. But he'll be along presently." 
 
 Harp was an Englishman, with some fading signs about 
 him of decent birth, decent education and upbringing, 
 but such signs were blurred and almost obliterated by 
 the habits which had degraded him. He would have been 
 dead or in prison or the poorhouse years ago if Carmen 
 had not chosen to rescue him, more through a whim than 
 from genuine charity. Her mother's people had been 
 English, and somehow she had not cared to see an English- 
 man thrown to the dogs in this country which was not hers 
 nor his. In days when her word was law for the infatuated 
 and brutal man whose death anniversary it now was, this 
 bit of human driftwood failure, drunkard, rascal had 
 been found trespassing on the ranch. If Carmen had not 
 chosen to show her power over old "Grizzly Gaylor" by 
 protecting the poor wretch, Harp would have met the 
 fate he probably deserved. But she had amused herself, 
 and saved him. Sick and forlorn, he had been nursed back 
 to something like health in the house of one among many 
 gardeners. Since then he had been her slave, her dog. 
 He called her "my lady," and she rather liked the name. 
 She liked the worshipping admiration in the red-lidded
 
 8 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 eyes which had once been handsome, and she believed, 
 what he often said, that there was nothing on earth he 
 wouldn't do for her. Once or twice the thought had 
 pierced her brain like a sharp needle, that perhaps he had 
 already done a thing for her a great thing. But it was 
 better not to know, not even to guess. Fortunately the 
 idea had apparently never occurred to any one else, and of 
 course it never could now. Yet there had been a very 
 
 curious look in Simeon Harp's eyes a year ago when 
 
 . . . Not that it proved anything. There was always a 
 more or less curious look in his eyes. He was altogether a 
 curious person, perhaps a little mad, or, at any rate, vague. 
 Especially was he vague about his reasons for leaving his 
 native land to emigrate to America. He said it was so 
 long ago, and he had gone through so much, that he had 
 forgotten. There are some things it is as well to forget. 
 Since Carmen had known him, Simeon Harp had tried his 
 luck as a water diviner, but failing, sometimes when he 
 most wished to succeed, in that profession, he had now 
 definitely settled down as squirrel poisoner to the neigh- 
 bourhood. Those pests to farmers and ranchmen, ground 
 squirrels, had given the strange old man a chance to build 
 up a reputation of a sort. As a squirrel poisoner he was a 
 brilliant success. 
 
 "Who gave you permission to call Mr. Hilliard 
 'Nick'?" Carmen asked, not very sternly, for she was 
 pleased to have news from the other ranch. After all, if 
 Nick had had a visitor he might not be to blame. 
 
 "Why, everybody calls him 'Nick'," explained Simeon, 
 huskily. "But I won't, if it isn't your will, my lady." 
 
 "Oh, I don't care, if he doesn't. Only- " she broke
 
 IN A GARDEN 9 
 
 off, slightly confused. Even to this old wretch she could 
 not say, " It isn't suitable that you should use my future 
 husband's Christian name as if he were down on the 
 same level with a man like you." She could not be sure 
 that Nick would be her husband, though it seemed practi- 
 cally certain. Besides, if Hilliard was "Nick" to every- 
 body, it was a token of his popularity; and Nick himself 
 was the last man to forget that he had risen to his present 
 place by climbing up from the lowest rung of the ladder 
 the ladder of poverty. She could not imagine his "putting 
 on airs," as he would call it, though she thought it might 
 be better if he were less of the "hail-fellow-well-met," 
 and more of the master in manner among his own cattle- 
 men, and particularly with the wild riff-raff that had 
 rushed to his land with the oil boom. 
 
 "Who was with him some man, I suppose?" she 
 asked of the squirrel poisoner, who stood quietly adoring 
 her with eyes dimmed by drink and years. He had so 
 settled down on his rheumatic old joints that he had 
 become dwarfish in stature as well as gnarled in shape, 
 and looked a gnomelike thing, gazing up at the tall young 
 woman. 
 
 "Oh, yes, it was a man, of course," Simeon assured 
 her. "There couldn't be any women for him who knows 
 you, it seems to me, my lady. And you were never as 
 handsome as you are this night. It warms the heart to 
 set eyes on you, like the wine you give me on your birth- 
 days, to drink your health. 
 
 Carmen was pleased with praise, even a squirrel 
 poisoner's praise. She could never have too much. 
 
 "You needn't wait for my birthday," she laughed. "I
 
 10 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 don't mean to have another for a good long time, Sim! 
 You can have some of that wine to-night." 
 
 "Thank you, my lady. It's an anniversary, too," he 
 mumbled, lowering his husky voice for the last words. 
 But Carmen heard them. "You remember that!" she 
 exclaimed, without stopping to think, or perhaps she 
 would not have spoken. 
 
 "Oh, yes, my lady, I remember," he said. "There's 
 reasons several good reasons why I shan't forget that 
 as long as I live. You see, things was gettin' pretty bad 
 for you, and so " 
 
 "Don't let's talk of it, Sim!" she broke in sharply. 
 
 "No, my lady, we won't," he agreed. "I was only 
 goin' to spy, things bein' so bad made what happened a 
 matter for rejoicin' and not sorrow, to those who wish you 
 well. That's all that's all, my lady." 
 
 "Thank you, Sim. I know you're fond of me and 
 grateful," Carmen said. "Things were bad. I don't 
 pretend to grieve. I shouldn't even have worn mourning, 
 if Madame Vestris, the great palmist in San Francisco, 
 hadn't told me it would bring me ill luck not to. I'm glad 
 the year's up. I hate black ! This is a better anniversary 
 than a silly old birthday, Sim!" 
 
 "Yes, and that reminds me, my lady," said Simeon, 
 "that I've put together enough perfect skins of the 
 squirrels I've killed without the dope to make the grand 
 automobile coat I've been promisin' you so long. Got the 
 last skin cured to-day, as it happened. Maybe, that'll 
 bring you good luck ! " 
 
 "Oh, I hope so!" she cried. 
 
 "Here's Nick Mr. Hilliard," Harp announced, nod-
 
 IN A GARDEN 11 
 
 ding his gray head in the direction of the oleander path, 
 to which Carmen's back was turned as she stood. 
 
 She wheeled quickly, and saw a tall young man coming 
 toward her, with long strides. Instantly, she forgot 
 Simeon Harp, and did not even see him as he hobbled 
 away, pulling on to his head the moth-eaten cap of squirrel 
 fur which he always wore, summer and winter, as if for a 
 sign of his trade.
 
 II 
 
 NICK 
 
 NICK HILLIARD snatched off his sombrero as he 
 came swinging along the oleander path. He was tall, 
 fully six feet in height, and looked taller than he was, 
 being lean and hard, with long straight legs which could 
 carry him very fast over great stretches of country. Also 
 he had a way of holding his head high, a way which a 
 man gets if he is in the habit of gazing toward far horizons. 
 He had a well-cut nose, a good chin, and a mouth that 
 meant strength of purpose, though some of his friends 
 laughed at him for a "womanish" curve of the upper lip. 
 Luckily Nick did not mind being laughed at by his friends. 
 His face was almost as brown as his hair, for the sun had 
 darkened the one and bleached the other; but the hair 
 was nice hair, with a glow of auburn in it, which con- 
 trasted not uninterestingly with his black, straight brows. 
 It was, however, the brilliance of the brook-brown eyes 
 which made Nick a handsome man, and not merely a 
 "good-looking fellow." It was because of his eyes that 
 women turned in the street for another glance when he 
 went into Bakersfield or Fresno; but Nick never knew 
 that they turned. He liked pretty girls, and enjoyed their 
 society, but was too busy to seek it, and had had little of 
 it in his life. It did not occur to him that he had qualities 
 
 12
 
 NICK 13 
 
 to attract women. Indeed, he wasted few thoughts upon 
 himself as an individual; not enough, perhaps; for he 
 gave his whole attention to his work. Work was what he 
 liked best, even without the ultimate success it brought, 
 but lately he had begun to long for a change. He had a 
 strong wish to go East, and a reason for the wish. 
 
 Carmen held out both hands, and enjoyed seeing how 
 white they looked in Nick's sunburned, slightly freckled 
 ones. He shook hers, frankly, warmly, and apologized 
 for his "rig," which was certainly far from conventional. 
 "I'm ashamed of myself for blowin' in on you this way," 
 he said, "especially as you're so mighty fine. I hope 
 you'll excuse me, for you know I pull out to-night, and 
 Jim Beach is bringin' the buggy along here for me, with 
 my grip in it. If I'd piked back home afterward, my 
 visit with you'd have been a cut game." 
 
 "Ah, I'm glad you arranged not to go back," said 
 Carmen. " I want you to stay with me as long as you can. 
 I like you in those clothes." She smiled at him as if she 
 would like him in anything; but Nick was thinking about 
 Jim Beach, wondering if the boy would have trouble with 
 the flea-bitten gray, which he himself had newly broken 
 to harness. 
 
 "All the same," Carmen went on, "though I like them, 
 you haven't got much vanity if you mean to wear those 
 things to travel East, and land in New York." 
 
 "Why, what's the matter with 'em, Mrs. Gaylor?" 
 Nick asked. He spoke carelessly, in the matter of accent 
 as well as of his feeling about the clothes. He cut off his 
 words in a slipshod way, as if he had never had time to 
 think much about the value or beauty of the English
 
 14 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 language. Still, though his speech was not that of a 
 cultivated man, it did not grate on the ear. His voice was 
 singularly pleasant, even sweet, with something of boyish 
 gaiety in it. 
 
 "The things are all right, Nick, and you're all right in 
 them. You needn't worry," said Carmen. " Only well, 
 I don't believe there'll be anything else like them or like 
 you either in New York." 
 
 Nick looked himself over indifferently. He wore a 
 "soft" white shirt, with a low collar turned over a black 
 scarf tied anyhow. There was a leather belt round his 
 waist, which obviated the need of a waistcoat or sus- 
 penders. His short coat and trousers were of navy blue 
 serge. Everything he had on was neat and of good 
 material, but Carmen smiled when she thought of this tall, 
 belted figure, hatted with a gray sombrero on the back of 
 its head, arriving at one of the best hotels in New York. 
 Nick was pretty sure to go to one of the best hotels. He 
 wanted to see life, no doubt, and get his money's worth. 
 Her smile was as tender as Carmen's smile could be, 
 however, and she was pleased that he was not "dressing 
 up" to make an impression on pretty women in the East. 
 
 "I don't care what anybody thinks about me in New 
 York," said he. "As long as you excuse me for not having 
 on my Sunday-go-to-meeting rags to dine with you, I 
 don't mind the rest." 
 
 "I thought you were never coming," she said, changing 
 the subject. 
 
 "So did I, by George! I thought the fellow'd never 
 
 go." 
 
 "Was it a deputation to say good-bye?"
 
 NICK 15 
 
 "Lord, no, Mrs. Gaylor! It was a chap you don't 
 know, I guess. I only ran up against him lately, since I 
 sold my gusher to the United Oil Company. He's their 
 lawyer and does some work for the railroad too. Smart 
 sort of man he seems to be, though kind of stiff when you 
 first know him: between forty and forty -five, maybe: 
 name's Henry Morehouse, a brother of a bank manager in 
 San Francisco. 
 
 "James Morehouse the banker is a very rich, important 
 man," said Carmen, somewhat impressed by the idea of 
 Nick's new friend who had stayed too long. "I've never 
 met his family myself. You know how close I was kept 
 till a year ago. But I've heard of them. They're in with 
 the Falconer set and that lot, so it shows they're smart. 
 What does Henry Morehouse want, making up to you, 
 Nick?" 
 
 "It was oil business brought us together and he seemed 
 to take a sort of likin' to me. We care about some o' the 
 same things books and that. Now he's going East 
 maybe on more oil business. Anyhow, he proposes we 
 share a stateroom on the Limited, and he's been recom- 
 mendin' his hotel in New York. I was kind of plannin' to 
 be a swell, and hang out at the W T aldorf-Astoria, to see the 
 nobs at home. But bis place sounds nice, and I like bein' 
 with him pretty well. He's lit up with bright ideas and 
 maybe he'll pass on some to me. His business won't keep 
 him long, he thinks; and he's promised his brother James to 
 look after a lady who's landing from Europe about the time 
 we're due in New York. He'll meet her ship; and if she 
 doesn't want to stay East any length of time, he'll bring 
 her back to California. She means to settle out here."
 
 16 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Carmen's face hardened into anxious lines, though she 
 kept up a smile of interest. She looked older than she had 
 looked when she held out her hands to Nick. She had 
 been about twenty-six then. Now she was over thirty. 
 
 "Is the lady young or old?" she asked. 
 
 " I don't know anything about her," Nick answered with 
 a ring of truthfulness in his voice which Carmen's keen 
 ears accepted. "All I can tell you is, that she's a Mrs. 
 May, a relation or friend of Franklin Merriam the big 
 California millionaire who died East about ten years ago 
 about the time I was first cowpunching on your ranch." 
 
 "Oh, the Franklin Merriam who made such stacks of 
 money irrigating desert land he owned somewhere in the 
 southern part of the State!" Carmen sighed with relief. 
 " I Ve heard of him of course. He must have been middle- 
 aged when he died, so probably this woman's old or old- 
 ish." 
 
 "I suppose so," Nick readily agreed. "Great king, 
 isn't it mighty sweet here to-night? It looks like heaven, 
 I guess, and you're like like ' 
 
 "If this is heaven, am I an angel? Do I seem like that 
 to you?" 
 
 "Well, no not exactly my idea of an angel, somehow: 
 though I don't know," he reflected aloud. "You're sure 
 handsome enough for anything, Mrs. Gaylor. But I've 
 always thought of angels lily white, with moonlight hair 
 and starry eyes." 
 
 "You're quite poetical!" retorted Carmen, piqued. 
 "But other men have told me my eyes are stars." 
 
 He looked straight into them, and at the hot pome- 
 granate colour which blazed up in her olive cheeks, like a
 
 NICK 17 
 
 reflection of the sunset. And Carmen looked back at him 
 with her big, splendid eyes. 
 
 It was a man's look he gave her, a man's look at a 
 woman; but not a man's look at the woman he wants. 
 
 "No," he answered. "They're not stars. They're 
 more like the sun at noon in midsummer, when so many 
 flowers are pourin' out perfume you can hardly keep 
 your senses." 
 
 Carmen was no longer hurt. "That's the best com- 
 pliment I ever had, and I've had a good many," she 
 laughed. "Besides coming from you, Nick! I be- 
 lieve it's the first you ever paid me right out in so many 
 words." 
 
 "Was it a compliment?" Nick asked doubtfully and 
 boyishly. "Well, I'm real glad I was smart enough to 
 bring one off. I spoke out just what came into my mind, 
 and I'd have felt mighty bad if you'd been cross." 
 
 "I'm not cross!" she assured him. "I'd rather be a 
 woman for you than an angel. Angels are cold, far- 
 off, impossible things that men can't grasp. Besides, their 
 wings would probably moult." 
 
 Nick laughed, a pleasant, soft laugh, half under his 
 breath. "Say, I don't picture angels with wings! The 
 sort that flits into my mind when I'm tired out after a right 
 hard day and feel kind of lonesome for something beautiful, 
 I don't know hardly what only something I've never had 
 that sort of angel is a woman, too, and not cold, though 
 far above me, of course. She has starry eyes and moon- 
 light hair lots of it, hanging down in waves that could al- 
 most drown her. But I guess, after all as you say that 
 sort's not my line. I'll never come in the light she makes
 
 18 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 with her shining, and if I should by accident, she wouldn't 
 go shooting any of her starry glances my way." 
 
 Carmen was vexed again. "I didn't know you were so 
 sentimental, Nick!" 
 
 He looked half ashamed. 
 
 "Well, I didn't know I was, either, till it popped out," 
 he grinned. "But I suppose 'most every man has senti- 
 mental spells. Maybe, even, he wouldn't be worth his 
 salt if he hadn't. Sometimes I think that way. But my 
 spells don't come on often. When they do, it's generally 
 nights in spring like this, when special kinds of night- 
 thoughts come flyin' along like moths thoughts about 
 past and future. But lately, since that blessed little oil 
 town has been croppin' up like a bed of mushrooms round 
 my big gusher or rather, the company's gusher, as it is 
 now I've had my mind on that more than anything else, 
 unless it's been my ditches. Gee ! there's as much romance 
 about irrigation in this country, I guess, as there is about 
 angels which you can see only in dreams; for you see 
 every day, when you're wide awake, the miracle of your 
 ditches. You just watch your desert stretches or your 
 meanest grazin' meadows turn into fairyland. I say, Mrs. 
 Gaylor, have you ever read a mighty fine book old but 
 good and fresh as to-morrow's bread called The Arabian 
 Nights?" 
 
 " I don't know. I dare say I read some of it when I was 
 a little girl," replied Carmen, wondering what Nick was 
 leading up to. "It's for children, isn't it?" 
 
 "I reckon it's for every one with the right stuff in 'em," 
 said Nick. "Anyhow, I haven't grown up enough to get 
 beyond it. I don't mean ever to turn the boy that lives
 
 NICK 19 
 
 inside of me out-of-doors. If I ever do anything to make 
 him so mad that he quits, I'll be finished dried up. That 
 book, The Arabian Nights, has got a dead clinch on me. 
 You know, when I run into Bakersfield, I like to have a 
 browse in the bookstores. It sort of rests me, and seein' 
 the pictures in that book made me buy it a birthday 
 present for my affectionate self " 
 
 "Your birthday!" Carmen broke in, tired of this book 
 talk, but not tired of anything that concerned him. " You 
 never told me. That was bad of you. How old, Nick? 
 I'm not sure to a year or so." 
 
 "Twenty-nine. Quite some age, isn't it? But there's 
 lots I want to do before I'm old. I don't know, though, as 
 I mean ever to be old." 
 
 "Of course, you never will be." Carmen agreed with 
 him aloud, but she was thinking in an undertone: "Only 
 twenty -nine, and I'm thirty-three. He won't be old ever, 
 or for a long time, but I will. I'm that kind, I'm afraid. 
 My mother was. I've got no time to lose; but to-day's 
 mine. Nick must love me really, though maybe he's too 
 used to me to know it, without being stirred up by some- 
 thing unusual. But I'll try my hardest to make him know 
 it to-night." 
 
 "Go on about your 'Arabian Nights,' " she said, to give 
 herself time for the arranging of her tactics. 
 
 "Oh, well, all I really began to say was this: I was 
 reading the story of Aladdin and an enchanted cave of 
 jewels he dropped into. There was a magic ring and a 
 lamp in the story too, that you could rub and get pretty 
 near anything you wanted; so I was thinking this irriga- 
 tion business of ours in California is like rubbing that lamp.
 
 20 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 It throws open doors of dark caves in deserts, and gives 
 up enchanted gardens full of jewelled fruit and flowers. 
 Then rub the smoky old lamp again and you get a spout 
 of oil another gift, which makes you feel as if a genie'd 
 chucked it to you. Look at my gusher, for instance! 
 Just think, Mrs. Gaylor, if you don't mind my talking this 
 way about myself you sold me my land, sliced it right 
 off your own ranch let me have it darn cheap, too, when 
 the boss died " 
 
 "I wanted to keep you as near as possible, Nick, when 
 people began to be silly and say I oughtn't to have a young 
 man like you on the place as foreman, with me alone, and 
 Eld gone. I needed you badly, and I'd have been glad to 
 give you land for nothing if you'd have taken it. Gracious ! 
 I've got so much left I don't know what to do with it, or 
 wouldn't if you weren't where you can advise me." 
 
 "That's your generous way of puttin' things," said 
 Nick. "And it was walkin' along toward you, brought 
 up these fairy-book thoughts so strong. My land's all 
 right, though my house is a shack and I haven't got any 
 flower-garden except in my head. But over here is another 
 world; and I was say in' to myself, how I owe the biggest 
 things of my life to you. True, I was taking out my wages 
 in calves while the boss was alive, and he was lettin' me 
 put my brand on 'em by the hundred. But square as he 
 was with me, he'd never have sold the land for the price 
 you did. Not only that, but when I struck oil, a month 
 or so after he went, look what happened. I hadn't the 
 capital to do any good. 'Twas you put the money in my 
 hand for the well-sinking and 
 
 "But you insisted on mortgaging every acre you bought
 
 NICK 21 
 
 your cattle and everything you had, to me; so that 
 took away the credit," cried Carmen, touched by his 
 gratitude, and happy in the renewed assurance that this 
 man was hers. "Besides, all you did and spent seemed 
 likely to harm more than help, when everybody said you 
 wouldn't get enough oil to pay for sinking your wells. It 
 was only when the gusher burst out by accident and took 
 every one by surprise that your troubles were over." 
 
 "If there's any such thing as accident," Nick mumbled, 
 his eyes far away from Carmen. " The longer I live, the 
 more I think there isn't. It's all arranged by Something 
 Big up there beyond where the sun's sinking and the 
 moon's rising. But maybe you'll say that's sentimental, 
 like the angel-thought. I don't mean it that way, though 
 I've got an almighty lot to thank the Something for as 
 well as to thank you." 
 
 " It wasn't I who took the gusher off your hands, any- 
 how, and saved you the expense of coping with it," said 
 Carmen. "So I suppose you think it was Heaven sent 
 you those men to buy what oil land you wanted to sell, 
 and start Lucky Star City." 
 
 "I guess that's Who it was. Not that I deserve any 
 special kindness from that quarter," Nick laughed. "My 
 mother used to talk a lot about those things, you know, 
 and though I was only a little shaver when she died, I've 
 remembered 'most all that was connected with her." 
 
 Carmen did not speak. She knew the history of Nick's 
 terrible childhood and early youth. Long ago he bad told 
 her how his grandfather, a California pioneer of good 
 Southern family, a successful judge, had turned an only 
 son away, penniless, because the boy of twenty chose to
 
 22 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 take for a wife a pretty little dressmaker, of no family at all; 
 how the couple had gone East, to live on a few hundred 
 dollars left to the boy by an aunt; how he had hoped 
 and expected to succeed in New York as a journalist and 
 writer; how he had failed and starved with his bride; 
 how he had faded out of life while Nick was a baby; how 
 the girl-widow had taken in sewing to support her child, 
 and when she couldn't get that, had washed or scrubbed; 
 and how, as Nick became a wise, worried old man of four 
 or five years, he had been able to help earn the family 
 living by selling the newspapers which had refused his 
 dead father's contributions. Nick had not enlarged upon 
 his adventures after this stage of his youthful career, 
 merely sketching them in the baldest manner, when it had 
 been necessary to present his credentials to the "boss" 
 "old Grizzly Gaylor." But in one way or other it had 
 leaked out that the boy had learned to read and write 
 and cipher at a night school in New York, not having time 
 for such "frills" as schooling by day. And Carmen could 
 not help knowing that he had gone on studying, and 
 thinking out his own rather queer ideas about heaven and 
 earth, ever since, in spite of the most strenuous interrup- 
 tions for she had been ashamed occasionally by happen- 
 ing to discover how much Nick knew. He had read 
 everybody and everything from Plato to Schopenhauer, 
 whereas it bored Carmen unspeakably to read anything 
 except novels, and verses which she liked sometimes in 
 magazines, because their pathos or passion might have 
 been written round her. 
 
 She knew how Nick, as a little boy, had swept shops and 
 found all sorts of odd jobs; how he had been errand boy,
 
 NICK 23 
 
 and district messenger in a uniform of which he had been 
 proud because it made him feel "almost like a soldier"; 
 how after his mother's death he had got his long-cherished 
 wish to "go West," by working on the railway and eventu- 
 ally becoming a brakesman. After that short experience 
 "cowpunching" days had come, and after several years 
 in a subordinate position on Eldridge Gaylor's ranch 
 he had at twenty-five been made foreman. But by this 
 time he was already a familiar figure in her life the life 
 which she had chosen, and hated after it was chosen, 
 except for Nick Hilliard, who had always loomed large 
 in it, though she saw little of him until a year ago. 
 
 Except perhaps with the old man she had married for his 
 money and hated for his brutality, Carmen believed that 
 Nick Hilliard's "ways" and good looks had helped, even 
 more than his courage and cleverness, to win him success 
 and recognition. With Eldridge Gay lor it had been 
 different. He thought of no man's pleasant looks or ways, 
 though even upon the corrugated iron of his nature, a 
 woman's beauty had had influence, and he had married 
 Carmen off the comic opera stage, in the City of Mexico, 
 where he had gone to see a great bullfight ten years ago. 
 When he had brought her home to his famous ranch, 
 willing for a while to be her slave and give her everything 
 she wanted, she had found Nick a cowpuncher among 
 other cowpunchers. And she had seen how he made "old 
 Grizzly" respect him. But his promotion had come 
 through a row and an attempt at murdering the "boss" 
 by a drunken foreman driven mad by a blow from the 
 short whip Gaylor carried about the ranch. Nick had 
 saved his employer's life, risking his own for he was im-
 
 24 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 armed at the moment; and to his surprise the reward had 
 been the discharged foreman's place. Carmen shivered 
 a little even now, remembering that night, and how she 
 had worshipped Nick for his bravery. She had never 
 since ceased to worship him, though he had done a great 
 many things which irritated her extremely, such as saving 
 "old Grizzly's" life once again: but those years were past. 
 
 As she wondered whether Nick would like her to talk 
 with him about his mother, or whether that subject was 
 too delicate to pursue, a musical Japanese gong sounded 
 from a side gallery. 
 
 "Oh, it must be half -past seven,'' she said. "I ordered 
 dinner early, so we could talk afterward by moonlight 
 (I love talking in moonlight !) before the time for you to go. 
 You can give me your arm, if you like, Nick." 
 
 Of course, Nick "liked," though he had never taken 
 a lady to dinner in that way before, and he felt proud, if 
 a little awkward, as a bare, creamy arm laid itself on 
 his coat-sleeve. 
 
 Slowly and without speaking, they walked along a 
 flower-bordered path that skirted the lawn on one side, 
 and on the other a canal full to the brim of glittering water, 
 which reflected the sky and the two figures. 
 
 It was a place and an hour made for love.
 
 Ill 
 
 THE ANNIVERSARY 
 
 THEY did not dine in the house, though one of the 
 show rooms was a huge dining-hall like a glorified re- 
 fectory in an old Spanish mission. After the beginning of 
 April, and sometimes long before, Carmen seldom took a 
 meal indoors, unless she was attacked by one of her fierce 
 fits of depression, and had a whim to hate the sun. 
 
 She and Nick mounted the steps, passed the fountain 
 which spouted diamond spray through a round head made 
 of some flowering water-plant, went on round a corner, 
 Carmen's dress brushing fallen camellia petals or pink 
 shells of broken roses, and so came to another veranda. 
 This was pergola as well. It had no roof but beams of old 
 Spanish chestnut, so draped with wistaria and roses that 
 the whole out-of-doors room was canopied with leaves and 
 hanging clusters of flowers. Only a faint filtering of sun 
 or moonshine could steal through, and such rays as pene- 
 trated seemed to be dyed pink and purple by draining 
 through the flowers. 
 
 Suspended from the beams were big iridescent pearl- 
 shells, known in southern California as "abalone," and in 
 the rainbow-tinted half-globes gleamed electric lights, 
 subdued by dull gold glass; but neither these nor the tall 
 shaded lamps on the low wall of the terrace, nor the hidden 
 
 25
 
 26 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 electric bulbs in the fountain basin, were allowed to shine 
 out yet. As Carmen said, she liked to talk by moonlight; 
 and now, over in the east, behind magnolia and palm trees, 
 the moon had been born while the sun died in the west. 
 
 If it had been her wedding-night dinner Carmen could 
 not have been more careful in ordering the different 
 dishes and planning the decorations of the table. Usually 
 whether she were alone or had guests (as she had some- 
 times, though "society" had never taken her up), she left 
 everything to her Chinese head-cook, who was a worthy 
 rival of any Parisian chef; and the beautifying of her 
 table to the artistic Japanese youth whose one business 
 in life was to think out new flower-combinations. This, 
 however, was not only the anniversary of the day which 
 had given her freedom, but she hoped it might be one to 
 remember for a sweeter reason. Besides, Nick Hilliard 
 was to be enchanted, to be made conscious of himself 
 and her, as the only man, the only woman, worth thinking 
 of in the world. 
 
 The air was sweet with the fragrance of orange-blossoms, 
 and the deep-red velvet roses which were Carmen's own 
 flowers. Nick was a water drinker by preference and be- 
 cause he was an open-air man, also because it had been 
 necessary for him to set an example; but to-night Carmen 
 made him sip a little iced champagne, and she drank to 
 the success of his first visit East since boyhood to his 
 safe and speedy home-coming. 
 
 "Because this is home, Nick; your home," she said. 
 "It would kill me if you saw any place you liked better, 
 and if you made up your mind that you wanted to sell 
 out and live in New York."
 
 THE ANNIVERSARY 27 
 
 "No fear," said Nick. "No man ever left paradise un- 
 less he was driven out by flaming swords." 
 
 "Then you won't be gone long?" she asked, playing 
 with the abalone chowder on her plate. 
 
 "Not more than a month anyhow; maybe a few days 
 less if I get homesick; though it would hardly be worth 
 while to go so far for a shorter time, after staying West so 
 many years without a single break. First, I count on 
 poking round in some of our old haunts poor mother's 
 and mine and then, when I am way down in the dumps 
 I'll yank myself up again with a little fun theatres and 
 roof-gardens and such-like." 
 
 "You've seen good plays in San Francisco," said 
 Carmen. 
 
 "Yes, San Franciso's a great place. Only I haven't 
 had time to go there once in a blue moon. And just 
 now it's those old associations pulling something seems 
 drawing and drawing me to the East. It's like a voice 
 calling my name 'Nick Nick, I want you. Come!' 
 Funny, isn't it?" 
 
 Carmen was not sure that it was funny. For she was 
 superstitious beyond all things; and at that moment 
 it happened that she could hear the moaning note of 
 ioves a sound which she believed always brought her 
 bad luck. 
 
 "What kind of a voice is it?" she asked, laughing 
 rather shrilly. "Not a woman's, I hope?" 
 
 "I guess it's that angel's I was telling you about." 
 Nick smiled. 
 
 Carmen motioned the Chinese butler to fill her guest's 
 glass, which he had hardly touched.
 
 28 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 " Don't let's talk any more of angels," she said. " Let's 
 talk of me, and you. Nick, do you know what to-night is? 
 A year since I was free. 'At the end of a year' I always 
 said to myself. 'Twelve long months of hypocritical 
 respect paid to the memory of a person who was more 
 brute than man. But not a day more, when the twelve 
 months are over. Then happiness new life !' Don't 
 you consider I'm justified in feeling like that?" 
 
 Nick thought for a moment, not looking at Carmen. He 
 gazed out through the torn curtain of roses into the silver 
 of the moonlight, over the wide lawn with its fountains, 
 toward the walls of trees which screened from sight the 
 rolling billows of the ranch-meadows with their cattle, 
 their shining, canal-like irrigation-ditches, their golden 
 grain, their afalfa, their fruit and flowers. All this wealth 
 and much more old Grizzly Gaylor had given the pretty 
 young singer in exchange for her beauty and the pleasure 
 of snatching her away from other men. Despite the 
 "boss's" notorious failings, it grated on Hilliard to hear 
 Carmen rejoice aloud because her husband was under- 
 ground, and she was free of him now that his back was 
 turned forever. 
 
 "Probably you're right," Nick said. "Yet it kind 
 of rubs me up the wrong way to listen to you talkin' like 
 that, in particular just this very night." 
 
 "Why in particular this very night? " she asked sharply. 
 
 "Well I guess it's only conventional, because, why 
 are twelve months more important than fourteen or any 
 other number? But it's the feeling of an anniversary, I 
 suppose. A year ago to-day he breathed his last and 
 he didn't want to die. It sort of seems as if to-day ought
 
 THE ANNIVERSARY 29 
 
 to be sacred to him, no matter what he was. And 
 maybe I'm a dashed hypocrite and don't know it, but it 
 doesn't suit my ideas of you to get the feeling that you 
 set up to-night as festival. I expect I'm wrong, though, 
 and you ought to be lecturin' me instead of me you." 
 
 " I don't want to lecture you, Nick, whether you under- 
 stand me or not," said Carmen. But the dinner and the 
 meaning of the feast were spoilt for her in an instant. 
 She could have bitten her tongue out because it had 
 spoken the wrong words words which jarred on Nick 
 at the very moment when she most wished to charm 
 him. She knew, with a heavy weight of premonition, 
 that this moonlight talk she had planned would give her 
 nothing worth having now. To try to make Nick feel 
 her power would do more harm than good, because the 
 night had suddenly become haunted by the spirit of the 
 dead man. "I'm punished," she thought, superstitiously. 
 But she exerted herself to be cheerful, lest Nick should 
 go East disgusted with her. And that would be the end 
 of all.
 
 IV 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 
 
 ANGELA MAY sat in her chair on the promenade- 
 deck of the Adriatic and felt peacefully conscious that 
 she was resting body and brain. 
 
 The ship was not crowded, for it was spring, and the 
 great tide of travel had turned in the opposite direction 
 toward Europe. On either side of her chair were several 
 which were unoccupied, and a soothing silence hovered 
 round her, through which she could listen to the whisper 
 of the sea as the ship glided on to the land of hope. 
 
 Loneliness gave a real joy to Angela; for, young as she 
 was, she had lived through an ordeal, and had taken a 
 step which meant high nervous tension leading up to a 
 supreme decision. She was glad all was over, and well 
 over; desperately glad that her courage had not failed. 
 
 "Oh, how thankful I am!" she said again and again, 
 under her breath. Still, she vaguely envied some of the 
 family parties on the ship, who appeared happy and 
 united . Not that she wanted them to talk to her. Witty , 
 lively people could be very nice when you were in the 
 mood for them, but agonizing when you were not; and 
 since it wasn't permissible to cover human beings up 
 like canaries when you had tired of them, or send them 
 away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela 
 
 30
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 31 
 
 cuddled down among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let 
 alone for the first time in her life. But there was a young 
 mother with a small imp of a curly-haired girl, who 
 fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp 
 fell on the deck, to be caught up and kissed until a wail 
 ended in a laugh, Angela said to herself, "If my mother 
 had been like that, everything would have been different 
 for me." 
 
 Saunterers for exercise or flirtation often turned for a 
 glance at Angela. What they saw was a slim girl, with 
 pearly fair skin, big gray eyes, quantities of wavy hair of so 
 pale a yellow-brown that it was like gold under the 
 mourning hat she wore. Her low black collar made the 
 slender throat that rose out of it white as a lily. The oval 
 of her face was perfect, and when she read or closed her 
 eyes, as she sometimes did, the long lashes, many shades 
 darker than her hair, and the delicate arch of the brown 
 eyebrows, gave her the soft, sweet look of a child asleep. 
 
 Always the glances were more admiring than curious; 
 but they were curious, too, for every one was wondering 
 who she was. In spite of her youth, there was something 
 of pride and distinction about her which made it seem that 
 she could not be an ordinary sort of person you had never 
 heard of; a mere Miss Smith or Mrs. Brown. Yet all the 
 "swells" on board had been duly accounted for and rec- 
 ognized. She was not one of them. 
 
 "What a pretty girl!" people said. "And she seems 
 to be travelling alone, unless her friends are too sick to 
 come out of their cabins. Apparently she hasn't even 
 brought a maid yet what lovely clothes she has, though 
 so simple, and all black. Perhaps she's in mourning for
 
 32 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 her father or her mother, or some near relation. She's 
 too young to be a widow!" 
 
 Angela did not much mind these glances, or this gentle 
 curiosity, for no normal woman objects to being thought 
 pretty. But it was delightful to feel sure that no one 
 knew who she was. If she were on the passenger-list as 
 the Princess di Sereno she would be more stared at and 
 bothered than that poor, fat Duchess of Dorsetshire, who 
 was too near-sighted to recognize her at a distance, thank 
 goodness. Each glance thrown her way would have been 
 an annoyance, for there would have been nothing flattering 
 in any spice of interest her title gave. Some silly creatures 
 might have stared at her because she was a princess; but 
 
 far worse others would have looked because they 
 knew all about her. 
 
 These would have buzzed: "Why, that's the Princess 
 di Sereno, don't you know, the only child of the California 
 millionaire who died about ten years ago, so suddenly 
 while his wife and little daughter were in Europe! The 
 girl married that Roman prince, Paolo di Sereno, who 
 used to make such a sensation going about in an aeroplane, 
 and gambling high at Monte Carlo awfully handsome 
 man, a lot older than she. He must have been nearly 
 forty, and she seventeen, when she married him. Her 
 mother made the match, of course: girl just out of school 
 
 the wedding wasn't six weeks after she was presented hi 
 England. The prince met her there, has English rela- 
 tions, like most of the Roman nobility. But the interest- 
 ing part of the story is this: they never lived together as 
 husband and wife. The bride either found out some 
 secret the prince had kept from her (which is what people
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 33 
 
 believe), or else there was a mysterious row the first hour 
 after the wedding. Anyhow, something happened; he 
 went off the same day and left her with her mother. 
 Afterward, he came back; but it was an open secret that 
 the two were no more than strangers, or, you might say, 
 polite acquaintances, though they lived at opposite ends 
 of his palace in Rome, which her money restored, and his 
 country place near Frascati. There was never the least 
 scandal, only wild curiosity. Now she has cut the whole 
 thing. Apparently couldn't stand the empty sort of life, 
 or else he did something worse than usual, at which she 
 drew the line." 
 
 Angela did not much care whether people in Rome 
 knew the truth or not. That no longer greatly mattered 
 to her, because she meant never, never to go back to 
 Rome, or to see Paolo di Sereno, or any of his friends 
 who had never really been her friends. But she did not 
 want people on the ship to know, because she was tired of 
 being talked about, and her hope was to begin a new and 
 different life. For herself, she had nothing to conceal; 
 but she had never felt any pride or pleasure in being a 
 princess, and after the flatteries and disillusions, the 
 miseries and foolish extravagances of the last hateful, 
 brilliant six years, everything connected with them, and 
 the historic title her dead father's money had bought, was 
 being eagerly obliterated by Franklin Merriam's daughter. 
 She knew little about her forebears on her father's side, 
 except that they were English, whereas Paolo had centuries 
 behind him crammed full of glorious ancestors whose 
 deeds were celebrated on tapestries of great beauty and 
 value. Her one tolerable memory of Paolo was that he
 
 34 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 had never touched her hand since their marriage; but the 
 memory of her father was sacred. She adored him, and 
 was never weary of recalling things he had said to 
 her, pleasures he had planned for her as a child, and, 
 above all, his stories of California, whither she was now 
 bound. 
 
 Angela had taken the name of "Mrs. May"; May, 
 because May was her birth-month, and also her middle 
 name given by her father, whereas Angela had been her 
 mother's choice. Therefore she was just superstitious 
 enough to feel that "May" might bring happiness, since 
 her father's memory was the single unshadowed spot in 
 her life of twenty-three years. A brilliant life it would 
 have seemed to most women, one to be envied; but 
 Angela could not see why. 
 
 The lashes which shaded her slate-gray eyes had that 
 upward curl which shows an undying sense of humour, 
 and she had been a merry little girl, with flashes of wit 
 which had enchanted Franklin Merriam before she was 
 snatched away to Europe at eleven, never to see him 
 again. Even at school where she had been "dumped" 
 (as Mrs. Merriara's intimate enemies put it), Angela had 
 kept the girls laughing. Now, though she had imagined 
 her gay spirit dead with childhood, she began to be visited 
 by its ghost. She amused herself on shipboard with a 
 thousand things, and a thousand thoughts which made 
 her feel the best of "chums" with her new friend and 
 companion, Angela May. " I've come back from twenty- 
 three to seventeen," she thought, and pretended that there 
 had never been an Angela di Sereno, that scornful young 
 person who had forbidden the prince to come near her on
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 35 
 
 learning that there was another whom he should have 
 married instead of Millionaire Merriam's daughter. 
 
 When she was a little girl in Boston (where Mrs. Merriam 
 had insisted upon living) , Angela used to sit on her father's 
 knee; and as he curled her yellow hair over his fingers he 
 wove romances of the Golden West, reluctantly deserted 
 for his wife's sake; and though many illusions had broken 
 like bright bubbles, this ideal still glittered before Angela's 
 eyes. She had been promised by her father that she 
 should visit California with him, when "Mother brought 
 her back from Europe"; but he had died, and mother 
 had not brought her back; so now she was going to make 
 the pilgrimage alone. Not only did she intend to see the 
 places her father had described, but when she had seen all 
 and could choose, she meant to buy land and make a 
 home for herself, her first real home. 
 
 W r herever she decided to live, the house must be like 
 the one where her father had been born long and low 
 built of adobe; there must be a patio, with a fountain in 
 the middle; and the rooms must be kept cool by the roof 
 of a veranda, shading the windows like a great over- 
 hanging eyelid. Lovely flowers she would have, of course, 
 but the garden must be as unlike an Italian garden as 
 possible. Italy was beautiful, but she did not wish to be 
 reminded of that country, or any other in Europe where 
 she had wandered in search of forge tfulness. 
 
 She had little fear that ghosts of the past would come to 
 haunt her in her new home, for though the Prince di Sereno 
 had once cared for her in his way, she had struck at his 
 pride and made him hate her in the end. At last he had 
 been glad to let her go out of his life, for she had made
 
 36 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 arrangements by which he kept more than half her money. 
 There was no danger that he would try to snatch her back 
 again; and as for European friends and acquaintances, it 
 was unlikely that such worldly persons would care to 
 come to the place she meant to select. It would be far 
 from the paths of tourists. 
 
 The eight-day voyage passed pleasantly for Angela. 
 She had spoken to no one except stewards and stewardesses 
 for, taking her meals on deck, she had not come into 
 contact with other passengers. The mourning she wore 
 for her mother, who had died four months before in London, 
 seemed to set her apart from others, though had it not 
 been for the cause of her mourning, probably she would 
 not now be on her way to America. It was a few weeks 
 after Mrs. Merriam's death, when she had recovered 
 from the shock which was hardly sorrow, that Angela 
 said to herself: "Now she is beyond being grieved by 
 anything I do, and I can go away for good." For 
 the girl had been under the frail cold woman's sway, as 
 the strong man, Franklin Merriam, had been in his 
 time; and Mrs. Merriam had derived such pleasure from 
 having a daughter who was a Princess di Sereno that 
 Angela could hardly have found courage to deprive her 
 of it. 
 
 At home, both in the country and at her palace in Rome, 
 the Princess had been waited on by two French maids, 
 one of whom dressed her, while the other kept her be- 
 longings in order. When she travelled, as she often did, 
 one or both went with her; to Egypt; to Algeria; to 
 Russia; to Paris; or to England. But " Mrs. May" had no 
 maid; and, landing in New York, it seemed that she was
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 37 
 
 the only person who did not meet with a welcome from 
 friends on the dock. 
 
 Suddenly, she ceased to enjoy her isolation. For the 
 first time since leaving Rome "on a long visit to relatives 
 in America" (according to newspaper paragraphs), the 
 Princess di Sereno did not hug her loneliness and her 
 secret. She hardly knew what to do as she stood under 
 the big letter "M" waiting to have her luggage examined. 
 Her fellow "M's" as well as all the other letters appeared 
 to be having desperate trouble with the custom-house 
 men, who clawed out the contents of their trunks and 
 then calmly left the cowed owners to stuff everything back 
 as best they could. 
 
 Angela's heart beat fast when her turn came, and she 
 wished for long-nosed, hard- voiced Josephine as a bulwark; 
 but the ordeal was not as bad as she expected. She looked 
 at her inquisitor with the air of a hunted child who had 
 got lost and hardly hoped ever to be found; so the pro- 
 tective instincts were aroused, and the wind was tempered 
 to the shorn lamb. In half an hour after the ship had 
 docked, Mrs. May was inquiring of a large, obliging Irish- 
 man (who had a vast store of knowledge concerning all 
 useful subjdects) how on earth she was to secure a cab. 
 
 Her hotel was decided upon, and rooms engaged. An 
 old friend of Mrs. Merriam, a cosmopolitan American 
 woman, had once praised the Hotel Valmont, Angela had 
 remembered; and driving from Twenty-third Street up 
 into the Forties, New York was almost as strange to her 
 as if she had never seen it before. Indeed, she had seen 
 little of it, for the Merriams had lived in Boston, and 
 Angela was only eleven when she bade her father and
 
 38 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 America good-bye. How vividly that day came back to 
 her now! She could see her father, and feel his kisses as 
 he said, "Never mind, little girl. When mother brings 
 you back then we'll have the time of our lives just you 
 and I hi California together." 
 
 But that day did not bear thinking of. And, by and by, 
 rattling through the bright, busy streets, in the vivifying 
 sunshine, she began to feel happy again, as well as very 
 young and eager. 
 
 "This is the gate of my future, and I'm driving into it," 
 she thought. 
 
 The Hotel Valmont, which Mrs. Corning had said was 
 small, loomed imposing to Angela's eyes, as her taxicab 
 stopped before the ever-revolving glass wheel of the Fifth 
 Avenue door. The building towered to a height of sixteen 
 or seventeen storeys at least, and appeared only a lesser 
 mountain among mountains. 
 
 A polite man in livery bowed her through the swift 
 whirl of the glass wheel, and she found herself in a large 
 hall with floor and walls of marble. Formally cut laurel- 
 trees grew in huge pots, and the gilded ceiling was higher 
 than those of the Palazzo di Sereno. 
 
 There were many desks, and she explained to one of a 
 dozen clerks that she was Mrs. A. V. May, who had cabled 
 for a bedroom and sitting-room. 
 
 She was expected, and her suite was ready. Would she 
 kindly register? And the young man, admiring the face 
 framed in gold hair and black straw, pushed forward a 
 ponderous volume that lay open on the counter. As 
 Angela pulled off her glove and took the pen, she laid 
 down a gold chain-bag which she always carried hanging
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 39 
 
 on her arm. Angela was used to it, and she had no idea 
 that it might be considered ostentatious in travelling. It 
 was convenient as well as pretty, which was all she thought 
 of; nor did she notice that several persons grouped near 
 the desks looked at her, and at the bag, which was edged 
 with diamonds and sapphires. 
 
 A diamond or two, and a sapphire or two, sparkled and 
 gleamed on her fingers as she wrote; but except for her 
 rings and a small, plain brooch, she had no jewellery which 
 was meant to show. Under the black chiffon of her blouse, 
 however, there was a glimmer of pearls which she wore 
 night and day for safety. 
 
 "Mrs. A. V. May," she wrote, then paused before giving 
 herself a habitation. Everybody else on the page was 
 placed as well as named. London was as good a back- 
 ground as any for an unknown Mrs. May, so she provided 
 herself with it, and then, moving her arm abruptly, her 
 gold bag fell on the floor. Naturally, a man who had been 
 leaning on the counter, looking at Angela, sprang to pick 
 it up. But another man was before him. Pulling off a 
 wide-brimmed gray hat which had been pushed to the 
 back of his head, he held out the gold bag a little awk- 
 wardly. 
 
 "I guess you dropped this, lady," he said. 
 
 Angela was on the point of laughing. She was used to 
 dropping her bag a dozen times a day, and having some one 
 pick it up for her, but it had been funny to see it snapped 
 away by this tall, oddly clad fellow, from under the 
 dapper gentleman's rather sharp nose. Of course, she did 
 not laugh, but smiled gratefully instead, and she could 
 not help staring a little at the retriever of her lost property..
 
 40 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 So, also, did the other and smaller man stare. This person 
 was well dressed, and had a slight, pointed moustache, like 
 a German officer's. 
 
 " Yes. It's mine. Thank you very much," said Angela. 
 And she thought: "What an extraordinary -looking man. 
 But how handsome ! He might be dressed for a play 
 only, somehow, he doesn't look like an actor. Whatever 
 he is, he's the real thing." 
 
 The wide gray sombrero remained in the young man's 
 hand. He was so tall that he made most of those standing 
 near look insignificant. Yet they, on the other hand, made 
 him conspicuous. 
 
 It was a long way up to his face, but when Angela's eyes 
 had climbed to that height, she saw that it was attractive, 
 and the eyes splendid, even compelling, so that it was 
 difficult to remove hers at once and discreetly from their 
 influence. 
 
 The type of man was new to her, and the look which he 
 gave her was new, somehow. His was a wild, uncivilized 
 kind of handsomeness, she thought, like that of a noble, 
 untamed creature of the forest, changed by enchantment 
 into a man and thrust into modern clothes. Yet the look 
 he gave her was not uncivilized, only surprised, rather 
 boyish, and as if the brilliant eyes had suddenly lit upon 
 something good which they had been seeking. Very odd, 
 and a little exciting, Angela found the look. 
 
 If the young man's clothes were modern, they were far 
 from being fashionable; not at all the sort of clothes to 
 suit the background of a marble hall in a New York hotel. 
 His shirt was of some soft white material which did not 
 seem to be starched, and a low collar was turned down
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 41 
 
 over a black, loosely tied cravat like a sailor's. Instead 
 of a waistcoat he wore a leather belt, of the sort in which 
 one would quite expect to see a knife or revolver sticking 
 out. His blue serge suit w^s of a country cut, the trousers 
 rather short and tight for the long, straight legs; and the 
 shoes were wide in the toe, thick in the sole. 
 
 All these details Angela noted in one quick glance; and 
 admiring the tall brown eccentricity as she might have 
 admired a fine bronze statue out of place, in the wrong 
 surroundings, she wondered from what sort of niche the 
 statue had transplanted itself. In her mind there was no 
 room whatever for the little man with the pointed mous- 
 tache, so she forgot his existence. 
 
 "Mighty pleased to do any service for you, lady," 
 stammered the bronze statue, and though his voice was 
 pleasant, it had not the cultured accent to which Angela 
 was accustomed. Besides, it was quaint to be addressed 
 as "lady." London cabbies and beggars called one 
 "lidy"; but they were a law unto themselves. Still it 
 sounded rather nice as he said it: "pleased to do any 
 service for you, lady." 
 
 She nodded politely as she moved away, following the 
 bellboy who had the key of her rooms, and as she reached 
 the lift, something made her glance back. The sombrero 
 was on the dark head again, and the head was bent over 
 the hotel register, where Mrs. May had written her name. 
 The man was either looking at that or writing his own. 
 Angela inclined to the latter supposition. Probably this 
 wild creature of forests had just arrived in New York 
 from somewhere very far away, perhaps from her father's 
 Golden West, the country of the sun. As the lift flashed
 
 42 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 her with horrifying swiftness up to the twelfth floor, she 
 still seemed to hear the echo of the pleasant voice, saying 
 " Pleased to do any service for you, lady." A few minutes 
 later, however, she forgot the incident of the dropped bag 
 in admiring her pretty suite of white and green rooms, the 
 bath, and the cedar-lined wardrobes in the wall, which 
 she remembered as typically American. She felt like a 
 child examining a new playhouse. Suddenly she was sure 
 that she would get on well with Americans, that she 
 would like them, and they her, though until to-day she 
 had been afraid that her country-people, in their own 
 land, would seem to her like strangers. Although she had 
 not made up her mind how long she would stay in New 
 York before going West, she unpacked a great many 
 things without stopping to think that perhaps she was 
 giving herself useless trouble. Then, wiien she had 
 scattered quantities of dresses, petticoats, hats, and cloaks 
 in both rooms, she paused bewildered. Everything she 
 had taken out on shipboard looked wrinkled and rather 
 haggard. She wished, after all, that she had brought 
 Josephine, though she had not been fond of her, or of the 
 others. She did not know what to do with the things, and 
 never could she get them all back again when it should be 
 time to leave the hotel ! It was as Josephine had proph- 
 esied. How the Frenchwoman would enjoy saying, "It 
 is as I warned Madame la Princesse!" 
 
 "Perhaps a servant of the hotel would help me," she 
 thought; and a call through the telephone brought to the 
 door a tall, dark, Irish girl, who would have been pretty if 
 her eyes and cheeks had not been stained with crying. 
 At first glance Angela was interested, for she was beginning
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 43 
 
 to be happy, and could not bear to think that any one who 
 came near her was miserable. At all times, too, she had 
 quick sympathies, and could read the secrets of sad or 
 happy eyes in a flash, as she passed them in the street, 
 though less sensitive persons saw nothing noteworthy; 
 and often she longed to hurry back to some stranger, as if 
 a voice had cried after her which she could not let cry in 
 vain. Now, as she talked to the maid about the unpack- 
 ing, unspoken sympathy went out from her in a magnetic 
 current which the Irish girl felt. Her tear-blurred blue 
 eyes fixed themselves on the young lady in black, and she 
 had a strong, exciting impression that some blessing 
 hovered near her, which she could take hold of if only she 
 had courage. 
 
 " Indeed, miss, I'll love to help you," she said. " 'Twill 
 be a rale pleasure and not many comes my way, these 
 days." 
 
 "I'm sorry for that," Angela told her. "Perhaps 
 you're homesick. I think you must have come not long 
 ago from a green island which every one loves." 
 
 "You're right, miss." The Irish eyes brimmed over. 
 "And I'm homesick enough to die, but not so much 
 fur Oireland, as fur a place I niver set eyes on." 
 
 Angela was interested. "You're homesick for a place 
 you never set eyes on? Then some one you love must be 
 there." 
 
 This time the tears could not be kept back. The young 
 woman had begun her work of gathering up Angela's 
 belongings, and lest the tears should fall on a lace night- 
 gown she was folding, she laid it on a chair, to search 
 wildly for her handkerchief. "Do excuse me, if ye can,
 
 44 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 miss," she choked. "I've no right to make a fool o' 
 meself in front of you, but you're that kind, I got filled up 
 like. It's the State of Oregon I'm thinkin' of, for the 
 man I crossed the say to marry is there, and now I don't 
 know when we shall ever see one another." 
 
 " Oregon's a long way off," said Angela. " I know that, 
 though I've lived in Europe most of my life. Only the 
 other day I looked at it on the map." 
 
 "Have ye got that map by you, miss?" 
 
 "Yes. We'll find it presently, in this mass of books in 
 my cabin trunk. But I was going to say, though Oregon's 
 ever so far West, the man you came from Ireland to marry 
 will surely send for you. Then how happy you'll be, by 
 and by." 
 
 "A long by and by, I'm afraid, miss." 
 
 "Oh, why? Isn't there money enough?" Angela 
 began to plan how she might make the course of true love 
 run smooth; though in these days she was not as rich as 
 she had been. 
 
 "There was, to begin with,*' the girl answered. "You 
 see, miss, he sent for me to meet him in New York, and 
 'twas he paid me way over. He'd bought land in Oregon, 
 and irritated it, as they calls it and was doin' wonderful. 
 The idea was he should meet me at the ship, and we'd get 
 married and go West, man and wife. But his partner 
 cheated him out of his eyes, and the trick only come out 
 when I was on the water. So instead o' findin' me Tim 
 I found a letter. The poor boy's had to start all over 
 again; and I tuk service, waitin' till he can scrape up the 
 money to fetch me out." 
 
 "I may be going quite near Oregon myself before long,"
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 45 
 
 said Angela impulsively. "Do you think you could learn 
 to be my maid, and would you like to go with me? " 
 
 "Like it!" the girl echoed, turning white and then red. 
 " 'Twould be heaven. I'm not too happy here. The 
 housekeeper's got a 'clow' on me. And indade, I've 
 done a bit of maidin' to a lady in the ould country. I'd 
 work early and late to please ye, miss!" 
 
 " I feel sure you would," Angela said. " But you know, 
 if you're going to be my maid, you must give up calling 
 me 'miss,' for I am Mrs. May." 
 
 "I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am. But 'twas 
 because ye look so young, it never entered me head ye 
 could be married, and perhaps even a widow." 
 
 Angela did not speak, and at once the girl made sure 
 that she had hit upon the truth with her last words. The 
 lovely lady was in black for her husband, to whom she 
 must have been married when almost a child. "My 
 name's Kate McGinnis, ma'am," she went quickly on, 
 "and though I've got no recommendations in writin', 
 because I thought to take a husband and not service, I 
 can get a good word from the priest, and 
 
 "Your face tells me enough," Angela broke in. "I 
 know you're a good girl, and that you'll be a comfort to 
 me on the journey. But if you go, you mustn't expect to 
 get out to Oregon immediately. I mean to travel to 
 California, and I should like you to stay with me until I 
 settle somewhere. Then I'll send you to the place where 
 your fianci lives." 
 
 "That's what I'd like best of anything," exclaimed 
 Kate. "Tim ain't ready yet, but he will be soon now 
 the worry about payin' the big price of me railway ticket
 
 4G THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 will be off our minds. Oh, but doesn't it seem too good to 
 be true?" 
 
 "Why not say too good not to be true?" asked Angela, 
 whose optimism to-day was ready to triumph over past 
 stumbling-blocks. "It's settled, then if the hotel will 
 let you off." 
 
 "I've giv' in me notice, miss madam, I mean," replied 
 the girl hastily. "There's some things I don't think Tim 
 would like about me bein' in a hotel, and I was lookin' out 
 for a private place. Me time's up here day after to- 
 morrow. But, oh, ma'am, there's a thing I haven't told 
 ye indade, 'twas because I forgot, not that I meant to 
 desave. Maybe, when ye know what it is ye'll change yer 
 mind about havin' me and I couldn't blame ye." 
 
 Angela's clear eyes looked full into the clear eyes of the 
 Irish girl. "I don't believe you can have anything to tell 
 me which will make me want not to have you. Is it 
 serious?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, very serious." Kate paused, swallowing 
 heavily. "It's it's a cat." 
 
 "A cat!" Angela burst out laughing. "How can a 
 cat come between us?" 
 
 "A black cat, ma'am named Timmy after me own Tim, 
 who give him to me, a kitten, three years ago, before he 
 left the ould country. I promised be this and be that I'd 
 niver part with the crature till Tim and me was made 
 wan, and I niver have. Neither will I, if I have to starve. 
 But I pay fur his kape in the hotel, out o' me wages, as if 
 he was a Christian, and so he is, pretty near. There's 
 nothin' he doesn't know; but I don't suppose ye'd allow 
 him to travel in the trains and I couldn't lave him."
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 47 
 
 To have a travelling cat, and a maid named McGinnis! 
 The idea was preposterous, but Angela was in a mood to 
 do preposterous things, and enjoy doing them. "I like 
 you for your loyalty," she said, "and I shall like Timmy, 
 too. Cats are misunderstood people. They can be splen- 
 did friends. And black cats are supposed to bring luck." 
 
 " I should love to have Timmy bring you some, ma'am," 
 said Kate. " Not that ye need it, of course." 
 
 "But I do," Angela answered. "As for you, I shall call 
 you by your first name. Kate, as if you were a French 
 maid. I like it better than McGinnis." 
 
 "Thank you, so do I, ma'am. But it's me Tim has the 
 fine name, which he'll give me when the right time comes. 
 It's Moriarty, and to my mind there's none with more 
 music in it. Oh, if ye only knew how happy ye've made 
 me ! I was afraid me name would be as black in yer eyes 
 as the cat, so that's why I broke it to ye gently, and now 
 I'm rewarded for everything." 
 
 Angela laughed again. "I fancied I was all alone in 
 the world," she said to herself, "and here I am collecting 
 a family." 
 
 She had luncheon brought to her own sitting-room, 
 when Kate had put away everything and gone. Quantities 
 of flowers she ordered, too American Beauty roses, which 
 looked extraordinarily intelligent and cpmpanionable, she 
 thought. Then, most of the afternoon she spent in poring 
 over maps, planning what she called her "pilgrimage"; 
 and a little before six she was ready to go down and buy 
 her ticket West, at the travel bureau which, she heard, 
 existed in the hotel. Afterward she meant to take a 
 stroll, and see Fifth Avenue by sunset.
 
 48 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Not once since entering her rooms had she consciously 
 remembered the "bronze statue." In the marble hall, 
 however, she recalled him, and thought most likely he was 
 out amusing himself and seeing New York. But no; 
 there he was, sitting rather dejectedly in a large rocking- 
 chair; and as her eyes found him, his found her. Instantly 
 his whole aspect changed. The statue came to life. His 
 listless expression brightened to the puzzling intentness 
 with which he had looked at her in the morning. As she 
 passed near him, on her way to the travel bureau, he got 
 up and stood like a soldier at attention. Seeing this 
 Angela went by quickly without seeming to glance at 
 him, for she was afraid that he meant to speak, and she 
 hoped that he would not, for she did not want to snub 
 him. She need not have feared, however. He made no 
 sign, but looked at her as if she were a passing queen, for 
 whom it was a man's duty and pleasure to get to his feet. 
 
 Angela would have bowed in recognition of the morn- 
 ing's courtesy, but dared not, lest after all he should be 
 encouraged to speak; for his type was so new to her that 
 she did not understand it in the least. It was, however, 
 rather an agreeable mystery, and she saw him feature by 
 feature, without appearing to lift her eyes. It was too 
 bad that he had been foolish enough to discard his be- 
 coming costume of the morning for a conventional suit of 
 clothes, which, it was painfully certain, he must have 
 bought ready-made. The things did not fit too well, 
 though they had probably cost a good deal, and they were 
 astonishingly like advertisements of men's clothes which 
 Angela had seen in American magazines on shipboard. 
 They did their best to give him his money's worth, by
 
 A GIRL IN MOURNING 49 
 
 spoiling his splendid looks and turning him into something 
 different from what nature had intended. His broad 
 shoulders were increased in size by the padded cutaway 
 coat, until they seemed out of proportion. His collar 
 was an inch too high, and he was evidently wretched in it. 
 Also he had the look in his eyes of a man whose boots are so 
 tight that he wishes to die. His fancy waistcoat and ma- 
 roon necktie must have been forced upon him by a ruthless 
 salesman who would stop at no crime in the way of trade, 
 and the consciousness of these atrocities and the large- 
 ness of his scarf-pin had reduced the poor fellow to the 
 depths of gloom. In one hand he held a pair of yellowish 
 kid gloves which hung limp and feeble, like the dead 
 bodies of small animals, and on the floor near his feet, as 
 if drawing attention to the brilliance of his patent-leather 
 shoes, was the latest extravagance in silk hats. 
 
 "My spoilt statue!" Angela thought. "I believe he 
 is as sorry for himself as I am for him. Who knows, 
 though? Perhaps I'm mistaken, and he's as proud as 
 Punch. In that case, I give him up!" 
 
 But she would not have believed any one who had told 
 her that she, and she alone, was the cause of the tragic 
 change. He had wished to appear well in her eyes, and 
 had gone about it in the way that seemed best.
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 
 
 WALKING down Fifth Avenue, after buying tickets 
 via Washington and New Orleans to Los Angeles, " Mrs. 
 May" happened to see a poster advertising a recital by a 
 violinist she had always contrived to miss. At once she 
 decided to go; and as it was for that night, there was just 
 time to hurry back to the hotel, dine, and dress. She was 
 lucky enough to get a box, hi which she sat hidden behind 
 curtains, and the evening would have been a success if the 
 carriage ordered to take her home had not been delayed 
 by a slight accident. She had to wait for it, and was much 
 later than she had expected to be in getting back to the 
 hotel. Theatres were over; suppers were being eaten in 
 the Louis Seize restaurant, into which Angela could see as 
 she got into the lift; and upstairs shoes had already been 
 put outside bedroom doors. In front of the one next her 
 own, she saw two pairs which made her smile a little, for, 
 though she could not be certain, she fancied that she rec- 
 ognized them. One pair was stout, unfashionable, made 
 for country wear; the other looked several sizes smaller, 
 glittered with the uncompromising newness of patent 
 leather, and was ultra "smart " in shape. 
 
 "Poor statue!" she said to herself. "If they're his, 
 how dreadfully the new ones must have hurt him!" 
 
 50
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT" 51 
 
 Then she went into her own room, where Kate presently 
 came to undress her with affectionate if inexperienced 
 hands. 
 
 Angela was still excited by all the events of the day, 
 her first in her own country since childhood, and fancied 
 that she would not be able to sleep. But soon she forgot 
 everything and lay dead to the world, very still, very white 
 in the light that stole through the window, very beautiful, 
 drowned in the waves of her hair. Then, at last, she began 
 to dream of Italy; that she was there; that she had never 
 come away; and that there was no escape. She moaned 
 faintly in her sleep, and roused herself enough to know 
 that she was dreaming; tried to wake and succeeded, 
 breathing hard after her fight to conquer the dream. 
 
 "It's not true!" she told herself, pressing her face 
 caressingly against the pillow because it was an American 
 pillow, not an Italian one in the Palazzo di Sereno, and 
 because it made her feel safe. 
 
 So she lay for a minute or two, comforting herself with 
 the thought that all bad and frightening things were left 
 behind in the past, with a door, double-locked by a golden 
 key, shut forever between it and her. Nothing disagree- 
 able could happen now. And she was falling asleep once 
 more, when a slight noise made her heart jump. Then 
 she and her heart both kept very still, for it seemed that 
 the noise was in the room, not far from her bed. 
 
 It came again, and Angela realized that it was at one of 
 the two windows, both of which were open. 
 
 At her request, Kate had pulled the dark blinds half- 
 way up, and Angela would have laughed at the suggestion 
 that a thief could creep into a room on the twelfth story.
 
 52 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Nevertheless, the night glow of the great city silhouetted 
 the figure of a man black against the shining of the half- 
 raised window-panes. It was kneeling on the wide stone 
 sill outside, and slowly, with infinite caution, was pushing 
 the heavy window-sash up higher, so that it might be 
 possible to crawl underneath and slip into the room. 
 
 As she stared, incredulous at first, then driven to believe, 
 Angela guessed how the seeming miracle had been per- 
 formed. The man had crept along the cornice which 
 belted the wall, on a level a few feet lower than the line 
 of the window-sills. She remembered noticing this as one 
 suddenly recalls some forgotten detail in a photograph. A 
 clever thief might make the perilous passage, helping him- 
 self along by one window-sill after another until he reached 
 the one he wanted. 
 
 Angela turned sick, her first thought being of the im- 
 mense drop from her window to the ground. " If he should 
 fall!" were the words that sprang to her lips. Then she 
 remembered that it would be better for her if he should 
 fall. He meant to rob and perhaps to murder her. She 
 ought to wish that he might slip. But she seemed to hear 
 a crash, to see a sight of horror, and could not make the 
 wish. 
 
 She lay motionless, her thoughts confused by the knock- 
 ing of her heart. If she jumped out of bed and ran across 
 the room to the telephone, the man could see her. Then, 
 knowing that she was awake, and caution on his part 
 unnecessary, he would fling up the window, jump in, 
 and choke her into silence. 
 
 "What can I do?" she asked herself. In two or three 
 minutes more the slow, stealthy lifting of the window-
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 53 
 
 sash would be finished, and the thief would be in the 
 room. 
 
 Her rings, and her gold bag with a good deal of money 
 in it, lay on the dressing-table. If only he would be 
 satisfied with these, she might lie still and let him act; 
 but her watch was under the pillow, and her pearls were 
 round her throat. The pearls were worth far more than 
 the bag, and the black shadow out there must know that 
 she had many things worth taking, or it would not be at 
 her window now. 
 
 "What can I do?" 
 
 Suddenly she thought of a thing she could do; and 
 without stopping to ask whether there were something else 
 better, she leaned out of bed and knocked on the door 
 between her room and the next. The door was fastened, 
 but, rapping with one hand, with the other she slipped 
 back the bolt. " Quick quick help ! " she called. "A 
 thief is getting in at my window." 
 
 There was a faint click, the switching on of electric 
 light, the swift pushing back of a bolt, and the door flew 
 open. The shoes she had seen in the hall had told her the 
 truth. It was the man she expected who stood for the 
 fifth part of a second in the doorway of her darkened 
 room, then, lithe and noiseless as an Indian, made for the 
 window. The thief was taken completely by surprise. 
 When Angela suddenly cried out, he had been in the 
 act of letting himself down to the floor, by slipping under 
 the window-sash, raised just high enough for him to 
 squeeze through. He had half turned on the wide ledge, 
 so as to get his legs through first and land on his knees; 
 therefore, he was seized at a disadvantage. The most
 
 54 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 agile gymnast could not have pulled himself back from 
 under the window-frame, balanced his body steadily again 
 on the stone ledge outside, and have begun to crawl away 
 toward safety, all in those few seconds before the cry and 
 its answer. He did his snaky, practised best, but it was 
 not quite good enough. The man from the next room was 
 too quick for him, and he was caught like a rat in a trap. 
 
 Angela sat up in bed, watching. The thing did not seem 
 real at all. It was but a scene in a play; the black figure, 
 dragged along the floor like a parcel, then jerked to its 
 feet to have both arms pinioned behind its back; and in 
 a brief moment, with scarce a sound. The light from the 
 next room let her see the two men clearly: the tall one 
 in pajamas, as he must have sprung out of bed at her call: 
 the little one in black, with a mask of crape or some thin 
 material over the upper part of his face. Now, in the 
 silent struggle, the mask had become disarranged, to show 
 a small, light, pointed moustache. She recognized it, 
 and knew in an instant why she had been thought worth 
 robbing. This was the creature who had tried to pick up 
 her gold bag; he had seen her rings, and perhaps had 
 spied the pearls. 
 
 "Take care!" she gasped a warning. "He may have 
 a revolver!" As she spoke, she sank back on the pillows, 
 feeling suddenly limp and powerless, as she lay drowned 
 in the long waves of hair that flowed round her like moon- 
 light. 
 
 "The little sneak won't get to draw it if he has," said 
 the tall man, in a tone so quiet that Angela was struck 
 with surprise. It seemed wonderful that one who had just 
 fought as he had could have kept control of breath and
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 55 
 
 head. His voice did not even sound excited, though hers 
 was trembling. "Don't be scared," he went on. "The 
 mean galoot! A prairie-dog could tear him to pieces." 
 
 "I'm not frightened now," she answered. "Oh, 
 thank you for coming. You've saved my life. Can't I 
 help? I might go to the telephone and call " 
 
 "No. Do nothing of the sort," her neighbour com- 
 manded. "There must be no ructions in your room. 
 I'm going to take this thing to my quarters. The story'll 
 be, he was getting into my window when I waked up and 
 nabbed him." 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Angela, roused to understanding and 
 appreciation. " For me, that would be good but for 
 
 you " 
 
 "For me, it's all right, too. And you don't come on 
 in this act, lady." 
 
 "He'll tell," she said. 
 
 "I guess not. Not unless he's in a hurry to see what 
 it's like down where he goes next. If he so much as peeps 
 while I'm in reach, I'll shake him till his spine sticks out 
 of his head like a telegraph-pole. Or if he waits till he 
 thinks I can't get at him, I'll scatter him over the landscape 
 with my gun, if I fire across a court-room. He sees I'm 
 the kind of man to keep my word." These threats were 
 uttered in the same quiet voice, and the speaker went on 
 in a different tone, "I'll tell you what you can do, lady, if 
 you don't mind. I hate to trouble you; but maybe 
 'twould be best for me not to try it with one hand, and him 
 in the other. If you'd slip into my room and push up the 
 window nearest this way a few inches higher, it would bear 
 me out better when I say he came through there."
 
 56 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Angela sat up again, and reached out for her white silk 
 dressing-gown, which lay across the foot of the bed. 
 Wrapping it hastily round her, she ran into her neigh- 
 bour's room. As she flashed by him, where he stood 
 holding his captive, he thought more and more of his angel 
 vision with the moonlight hair, and it seemed a strange, 
 almost miraculous coincidence that he should behold it in 
 real life, after describing his dreams to Carmen Gaylor. 
 
 "The nearest window," Angela repeated, respecting 
 the man's shrewdness and presence of mind. The nearest 
 window was the one to open, because the thief had come 
 crawling along in that direction on the cornice, and soon 
 it would be found out which room he had occupied, since 
 ihe must be staying in the hotel. 
 
 She pushed up the heavy sash, already raised some 
 inches, and turning, saw that the silent, sulky prisoner 
 had been dragged in by her champion. 
 
 "Thank you, lady," said the latter, briskly. "Now, 
 you just go back to sleep and forget this cut it out. 
 The rest's my business." 
 
 "But how can I let you have all this trouble on your 
 shoulders?" stammered Angela. "You'll have to bear 
 witness against him. There'll be a trial or something. 
 You may be delayed, kept from doing things you want 
 to do " 
 
 "You can sure bet there's nothing on God's earth I 
 want to do so much as keep a lady out of this business," 
 her neighbour assured her. "Now go back to your room, 
 please, and lock your door." 
 
 Their eyes met, and Angela felt herself thrill with 
 admiration of this new type which had set her wonder-
 
 WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 57 
 
 ing. The forest creature turned into a man, was a man 
 indeed! 
 
 "Good night, then," she said. "I can't thank you 
 enough for everything." 
 
 She flitted away, her small bare feet showing white and 
 pink under the lace of night-dress and dressing-gown. 
 She locked her door obediently, as she had been told, but 
 she did not go back to bed, or try to forget. There was a 
 big easy chair not far from the door she had just closed, 
 and she subsided into it, limply, realizing that she had gone 
 through a strenuous experience. Huddled there, a minute 
 later she heard her neighbour's voice speaking through 
 the telephone, and was consumed with curiosity as to how 
 he was keeping the wriggling prisoner quiet. 
 
 "He must have contrived to tie the wretch somehow," 
 she told herself. "Or perhaps he's strong enough to hold 
 him with one hand. He's the sort of man who would 
 always think of an expedient and know how to carry it 
 out." 
 
 It seemed dreamlike, that such a scene as her imagination 
 pictured was really passing in the next room, where all was 
 so quiet save for the calm voice talking at the telephone, 
 and Angela could not help listening anxiously, hoping to- 
 catch a few words. 
 
 After the first murmur at the telephone, through the 
 thick mahogany door, there fell a silence more exciting to 
 the listener than the indistinct sounds had been. Then 
 suddenly there was a stirring, and the mumble of several 
 heavy, hushed voices. After that, dead silence again, 
 which remained unbroken. Evidently the police had been 
 sent for; had come; had listened to the story of the
 
 58 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 attempted theft as told by the thief's captor. Angela 
 was sure his version had not been contradicted, or she 
 would certainly have heard a shot. The forest creature 
 would have kept his word ! But he had not been tempted; 
 and the thief had been carried away. Angela wondered 
 whether her neighbour had gone too or whether he 
 remained in the next room, taking his own advice to her, 
 and "trying to forget." She would not be surprised if he 
 were able to sleep quite calmly.
 
 VI 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 
 
 NEXT morning Angela said nothing to Kate of what 
 had happened in the night. Her thoughts were full 
 of the affair, but since the true version was to be sup- 
 pressed, it would be better to have no confidant. She 
 asked, however, to see a morning paper, and when it came 
 was disappointed to find no paragraph concerning the thief 
 at the Hotel Valmont. She did not know anything about 
 the making of newspapers, but took it for granted that 
 the story had been too late for press, and became very 
 eager to meet her neighbour, that she might hear all at 
 first hand from him. 
 
 She passed him hurriedly the day before, her head bent, 
 because she was afraid he meant to speak, and she would 
 have to snub him. But now the tables were turned. She 
 dressed and went down early, making an excuse to glance 
 over a quantity of magazines and papers in the big hall, 
 hoping that he might appear. But he did not. It was 
 almost, she told herself, as if he were punishing her for 
 avoiding him yesterday, by paying her back La her own 
 coin. Not that she believed he was really doing so. Yet 
 it was extremely aggravating that he should keep out of 
 the way. He ought to have understood that she would 
 want to know what happened after the first chapter of 
 
 59
 
 60 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 the story was brought to a close by the shutting of the 
 door. 
 
 Because she was waiting for him (whether she acknowl- 
 edged this or not) and because he did not come, Angela 
 thought of the man every moment, without being able to 
 put him out of her mind. He had shown such astonishing 
 tact as well as pluck last night, and was so good-looking, 
 that his very lack of cultivation made him more interesting 
 as a study. She would have liked to ask the hotel people 
 about him; whence he came and what was his name; 
 but, of course, she did nothing of the sort. All she did 
 was to make various pretexts for lingering in the hall till 
 nearly luncheon time; and then the arrival of evening 
 papers partly explained to her mind the mystery of the 
 man's absence. Also they made her a present of his name, 
 and a few other personal items. 
 
 "Nick Hilliard of California Makes Hotel Thief Feel 
 Small," was the heading of a conspicuous half -column 
 which caught her eye. 
 
 The said thief, it seemed, was known to friends and 
 enemies as "Officer Dutchy." He had "worked" with 
 success in Chicago and the Middle West, but was a com- 
 parative stranger in New York. He "claimed" to have 
 been an officer hi the German army, but probably lied, 
 though he had evidently been a soldier at one time. He 
 had numerous aliases, and spoke with a German accent. 
 His name appeared on the register of the Valmont as 
 Count von Osthaven, and he admitted an attempt to enter 
 the room occupied by Mr. Hilliard, having reached it by 
 a daring passage along a stone cornice, from his own 
 window, four rooms to the left, on the twelfth storey.
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 6f 
 
 The case against "Officer Dutchy" would be an interest- 
 ing one, as his previous career was according to the 
 reporter full of "good stories." Mr. Hilliard was hop- 
 ing, however, that it might be hurried on and off, taking up 
 as little time as possible, as he had use for every moment 
 other than hanging about a court-room giving evidence. 
 Born in New York, he had gone West while a boy, and had 
 never since been in the East till a day or two ago, when 
 he had arrived from the neighbourhood of Bakersfield, 
 California, with the avowed intention of enjoying himself. 
 Naturally he did not want to have his enjoyment curtailed 
 by business. 
 
 Angela felt guilty. It was her fault that the poor 
 young man's holiday was spoiled. She ought not to have 
 let him take her burdens on his shoulders; but it was too 
 late to repent now. She could not come forward and tell 
 the real story, for that would do him harm, since it would 
 differ from his version. She could atone only by showing 
 her gratitude in some way. Because he came from Cali- 
 fornia, she longed to show how friendly and kind she could 
 be to a man of her father's country a man worthy of that 
 country and its traditions she began to think. 
 
 She lunched in a quiet corner of the restaurant; but 
 Mr. Nickson Hilliard of California did not show himself, 
 and at last Angela went up to her own rooms disappointed. 
 Hardly had she closed the door, however, when a knock 
 sent hefr flying to open it again. A bellboy had brought 
 a note, and she sprang to the conclusion that it must be 
 from Mr. Hilliard. He had found out her name, and had 
 written to tell what had happened behind the closed door 
 the^ loose end of the story which the newspapers had not
 
 62 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 got, never would get, from any one concerned. But the 
 bright pink of excitement and interest which had sprung 
 to her face died away, as she opened the envelope and 
 glanced down the first page of the letter, which was headed, 
 "Doctor Beal's Nursing Home." She read: 
 
 "MADAM: 
 
 "I am requested by Mr. Henry Mcrehouse of San 
 Francisco to express his regret at not being able to meet 
 your ship and offer his services as he hoped to do, at the 
 request of his elder brother, Mr. James Morehouse, of the 
 fidelity Trust Bank, San Francisco. Mr. H. Morehouse 
 was coming East on law business, when his brother sug- 
 gested that he make himself useful to you, and he was 
 looking forward to doing so, having known the late Mr. 
 Franklin Merriam. On starting, however, Mr. Morehouse 
 was far from well, and found himself so much worse on 
 reaching New York, that he was obliged to consult a doctor. 
 The result was an immediate operation for appendicitis. 
 This was performed successfully yesterday and Mr. More- 
 house feel strong enough to express (through me) his regret, 
 wishing to explain why he failed, in case his brother may 
 have let you know that he intended to meet you. 
 
 "Yours faithfully, 
 
 "N. MILLAR 
 " (Nurse in Doctor Beal's Private Hospital)." 
 
 Mr. James Morehouse (in whose bank there were funds 
 for "Mrs. May") had not informed her of his brother's 
 intentions, and though she was sorry to hear of the poor 
 man's sufferings, she could not regret his failure to meet her 
 at the ship. She did not wish to be helped, nor told how 
 to see things, nor be personally conducted to California. 
 She enjoyed being free, and vague, able to stop as long or
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 63 
 
 as short a time as she liked on the way. She wanted to 
 see only places which she wanted to see, not places which 
 she ought to want to see; for there was ;sure to be a 
 difference. 
 
 Nevertheless, she wrote a gracious answer to the letter, 
 and ordered flowers sent to Doctor Seal's Nursing Home, 
 for Mr. Henry Morehouse. Then she proceeded to forget 
 him, unconscious of the direct influence his illness was to 
 have upon her future. She thought far more about Mr. 
 Nickson Billiard, whom she had avoided yesterday, and 
 who seemed to avoid her to-day. The fact that the letter 
 which had brought colour to her face was from a strange, 
 unwanted Mr. Morehouse, vexed the Princess unreason- 
 ably with Nickson Hilliard, who ought to have written, 
 if he could not call, to tell his story; and when she heard 
 nothing from him, saw nothing of him, it was in resentment 
 that she left New York next morning. Though it was 
 entirely subconscious, the real thought in her mind was: 
 
 "Since he didn't choose to take the chance when he 
 had it, now he shan't have it at all ! " 
 
 For a woman of twenty-three is very young. It is 
 annoying to be cut off in the midst of an adventure, by 
 the hero of the adventure, when you have flattered your- 
 self that the poor fellow was yearning to know you. If 
 Angela was unjust to Hilliard she was not an isolated 
 instance; for all women are unjust to all men, especially 
 to those in whom they are beginning to take an interest. 
 Angela did not know that she was interested in Nickson 
 Hilliard, and would have laughed if any one had suggested 
 the idea, from a personal point of view; but in her social
 
 64 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 reign as the Princess di Sereno, she had been a good deal 
 spoiled by every one except the Prince. Vaguely, and 
 like a petted child, she had taken it for granted that all 
 men were glad to be "nice" to her, and she thought the 
 "forest creature" was showing himself a backwoods 
 creature rude and unenlightened. 
 
 Angela loved the sea, and chose to travel on it when- 
 ever she could. The trip from New York to New Orleans 
 was even more interesting than she had expected from 
 tales of her father's, for the ship steamed along the coast, 
 in blue and golden weather, turning into the Gulf of Mexico 
 after rounding the long point of Florida. Cutting the silk 
 woof of azure, day by day, a great longing to be happy 
 knocked at Angela's heart, like something unjustly im- 
 prisoned, demanding to be let out. She had never felt 
 it so strongly before. It must be, she thought, the tonic 
 of the air, which made her conscious of youth and life, eager 
 to have things happen, and be in the midst of them. 
 But Kate was a comfort, almost a friend. And Timmy 
 the cat was a priceless treasure. 
 
 No town in America, perhaps, could have contrasted 
 more sharply with New York than New Orleans. Angela 
 felt this, even as the ship moved slowly along the great 
 canal and slipped into the dark, turbid gold of the Missis- 
 sippi River. The drowsy landscape on either side was 
 Southern landscape, and among live-oaks draped with 
 mourning flags of moss, and magnolia-trees gemmed with 
 buds, there were planters' houses which seemed all roof 
 and balcony. Buzzards flew up suddenly, out of rice- 
 fields, as the ship rounded a curve creatures big and long- 
 legged as the storks of Holland and Algeria. The wharf,
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 65 
 
 when the ship docked at last, was filled with bales of cot- 
 ton, and it was as if all the negroes in America must have 
 come down to meet the boat. She might have been walk- 
 ing into an old story of Cable's, in the days "befoh the 
 wah." 
 
 Her idea had been to travel on to the West next day, 
 but New Orleans held her. She had left the Old World 
 eagerly for the New; but this bit of the Old, in the midst of 
 the New, made her feel as if she had stumbled into an 
 ancient Spanish court, in the middle of a modern sky- 
 scraper. The contrast was sharp as the impress of an old 
 seal in new wax, and Angela loved it. She liked her hotel, 
 too, and said but half-heartedly each morning, "To- 
 morrow I'll go on." With Kate for duenna, she wandered 
 through streets which, though they had historic French 
 names, reminded her more of Spain than of France, with 
 their rows of balconies and glimpses of flowery patios 
 paved with mossy stones, or cracked but still beautiful 
 tiles. She made friends with an elderly French shop- 
 keeper of the Vieux Carre, who looked as if carved out of 
 ivory and yellowed with age. His business was the selling 
 of curiosities; antique furniture brought in sailing ships 
 from France when New Orleans was in the making; 
 quaintly set jewels worn by famous beauties of the great 
 old days; brocades and velvets which had been their ball 
 dresses; books which had Andrew Jackson's name on 
 yellow fly-leaves; weird souvenirs from the haunted 
 house where terrible Madame Lalaurie tortured slaves 
 to death; fetishes which had belonged to Marie Laveau, 
 the Voodoo Queen; sticks and stones of the varnished 
 house where Louis Philippe lived, and letters written by
 
 66 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Nicholas Girod, who plotted to rescue Napoleon from St. 
 Helena and spirit him across the sea to New Orleans. 
 The selling of these things, or rather the collecting of them, 
 was the pleasure as well as the business of Monsieur 
 Bienvenu, and he had stored in his mind as many legends 
 of the old town as he had stored treasures in his low- 
 browed, musky-smelling shop. Angela spent her mornings 
 listening to his tales of slave-days, and always she bought 
 something before she bade him au revoir, in the Parisian 
 French which enchanted the old man. 
 
 "You light up my place, madame," he said; and 
 insisted, with graceful gestures, that she should not pay 
 for her collection of old miniatures, necklaces, gilded 
 crystal bottles, illuminated books and ivory crucifixes, 
 until the day fixed for her departure. 
 
 "Once you pay, madame, you may not come again," 
 he smiled. "I am superstitious. I will not take your 
 money till the last moment." 
 
 On the third day, however, Angela decided that she 
 must go. Her father's country called, with a voice she 
 could hear above the music of the Southern town, the 
 laughter of the pretty French girls and the chatter of black 
 and brown babies who babbled a language which was 
 neither French, Spanish, nor English, but a mixture of all. 
 She bought more things of Monsieur Bienvenu, and also 
 in other curiosity shops which she dared not mention to 
 him, since his one failing was a bitter jealousy of rivals. 
 
 "Where is my gold bag, Kate? Have you got it?" 
 she asked, when the moment came to pay a hundred 
 dollars for two or three snuff-boxes, picked up in a place 
 she had not visited until that day.
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 67 
 
 "No, ma'am, you had it on yer arm when I noticed 
 last," said Kate, looking^ startled. "Fur all the saints, 
 I hope ye haven't lost it!" 
 
 Angela, too, began to look anxious. Not only was her 
 bag valuable worth seven or eight hundred dollars 
 but all her money was in it, and a check-book she had 
 brought out that morning, to pay Monsieur Bienvenu the 
 rather large sum she owed him. Still, she was not greatly 
 distressed. She had lost that gold bag so many times, 
 had dropped it from her lap when she got up, left it 
 in motor-cars, or lying on the floor in friends' houses, 
 and always it had come back to her! She cheered 
 herself, therefore by saying that to-day would be no 
 exception. 
 
 "Let me think, where were we last, Kate?" she won- 
 dered. "The shop where I bought the lilac and silver 
 stole, wasn't it?" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am it was. And indade, if ye'll not mind 
 my say in' so, I begged ye not to go in there, the place 
 looked so disrespectable, as if there might be measles or 
 'most anything, and the man himself come poppin' out to 
 entice ye in, like the spider with the fly." 
 
 "We must go back at once and see if I left the bag 
 after paying for the stole," said Angela. And, explaining 
 to the late owner of the snuff-boxes, she hurried out with 
 Kate, leaving her parcel to be called for. 
 
 Little Mr. Isaac Cohensohn, of the brocade shop, made a 
 search, but could not find the missing trinket. Unfortu- 
 nately, a number of people had been in since the lady left, 
 strangers to him. If madam was sure she had gone out of 
 the shop without the bag, why, somebody must have
 
 68 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 taken it since then. The question was, who? But she 
 must apply to the police. 
 
 "If only I hadn't stuffed in that check-book!" Angela 
 said to Kate. "Perhaps they would have cashed a check 
 in the hotel. Anyhow, Monsieur Bienvenu would have 
 taken one for what I owe him. Now I'm in the most 
 horrid scrape! I don't know how I'm going to get out 
 of it." 
 
 They walked back toward the shop of the snuff-boxes 
 gloomily discussing the situation, which was complicated by 
 the fact that, grown cautious since the attempted burglary 
 at the Valmont, Angela had left her most valuable jewellery 
 in a bank at New York. It was to be sent on, insured, 
 only when she finished her travelling, and settled down. 
 
 "I'll have to call the police, I suppose," she said. 
 "Though it's sure to do no good. I shall never see my bag 
 again! I can telegraph to have the checks stopped at 
 the San Francisco bank; but I had nearly five hundred 
 dollars in the purse. What shall I do about my hotel bill 
 and everything? And my railway tickets? We'll have 
 to stay till I can get money." 
 
 Suddenly, because it seemed impossible, she wanted 
 passionately to start at once. 
 
 Always she had hated postponing things. 
 
 "Somehow, I will go!" she said to herself. ."I don't 
 know how but I will." And she walked on with Kate, 
 back to the hotel, remembering how she had told the 
 head clerk that this was her last day she was giving up 
 the rooms to-morrow. And the hotel was crammed, be- 
 cause there was a Convention of some sort. It might be 
 that her suite was already let for the next day.
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 69 
 
 She went to the desk, asking abruptly, "If I find that 
 I need to stop longer, are my rooms free for to-morrow?" 
 
 " Unfortunately, we've just let them not as a suite, 
 but separately," said the young man. "This is a big 
 week for the Crescent City, you know, and we've got 
 people sleeping in bathrooms." 
 
 "What shall I do?" Angela exclaimed, trouble breaking 
 down reserve. "All my money and a check-book I had 
 in my gold bag have been stolen. I'll have to telegraph 
 my bank." And she had visions of being deposited in a 
 bathroom, with all her luggage and Kate, and Tim the cat. 
 
 "Well, that's a shame," the clerk sympathized. "I'll 
 tell you what I can do. A gentleman came in about an 
 hour ago; said he was looking for a friend; glanced over 
 the register, and must have found the name, because he's 
 going to stay. He's got to sleep in the laundry to-night, 
 but he's among those I've allotted to your suite to-morrow. 
 When he hears a lady wants to keep her room, he's sure to 
 wait for it." 
 
 "I don't like to ask a favour of a stranger," Angela 
 hesitated. 
 
 "American men don't call things like that favours, 
 when there's a lady in the case," replied the clerk. "It 
 wouldn't do for you to be in the laundry." 
 
 It was rather unthinkable; so when the young man 
 added that the newcomer might be in at any minute for 
 luncheon, Angela flitted to her own quarters, which looked 
 more than ever attractive now that they might be snapped 
 away from her. She descended again soon, hoping to hear 
 her fate; and there, by the desk, stood Mr. Nickson 
 Billiard.
 
 70 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 His brown face reddened at sight of Mrs. May, but he 
 did not show surprise. Seeing that she intended to recog- 
 nize him, his eyes brightened, and Angela felt that she, 
 too, was blushing a little. She was vexed with him still, 
 but it would have been stupid as well as ungrateful to 
 show her annoyance except by being elaborately polite. 
 After all, she owed him gratitude, which she had wished 
 for a chance to pay. 
 
 She put out her hand, and he radiated joy as he took it. 
 Happiness was becoming to Nick. An all too cordial 
 grip he gave, then loosened his grasp in a fright; "I 
 hope I haven't hurt you!" he exclaimed, horrified. 
 
 Angela laughed. "Only a tiny bit; and that's better 
 than a fishy handshake. Luckily, I left my sharpest 
 rings in New York. And, oh, the gold bag you saved is 
 gone forever! I've just had it stolen." 
 
 "That's too bad," he remarked. But he did not look 
 cast down. "I'll rummage New Orleans for it, if you 
 give me leave to have a try," he volunteered. 
 
 "Thank you," she said. "But I shall have to tell the 
 police, I suppose. Not that there's much hope." 
 
 "You wouldn't let me set the ball rolling, would you?" 
 he asked, as if he were begging a favour instead of wishing 
 to do one. "I mean go to the police for you, and all 
 that?" 
 
 "How kind you are!" exclaimed Angela. "But no, 
 indeed, I won't spoil your visit to New Orleans as I did 
 your visit to New York." 
 
 Nick looked astounded. "What makes you think you 
 spoiled my visit to New York?" 
 
 Here was Angela's chance for a gentle reproach, and she
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 71 
 
 could not resist the temptation of administering it, 
 wrapped in sugar. 
 
 "I don't think. I know. And it distressed me very 
 much," she said, sweetly. "I read in the papers that you 
 hadn't been in New York since you were a boy; that you 
 were there to 'enjoy yourself.' And all your time was 
 taken up with the bother that ought to have been mine! 
 You were too busy even to let me hear what happened 
 
 that night, after " Suddenly she was sorry that she 
 
 had begun. It was silly and undignified to reproach him. 
 
 His face grew scarlet, as if he were a scolded schoolboy. 
 
 "Too busy!" he echoed. "Why, you didn't think 
 that, did you? You couldn't!'* 
 
 "What was I to think?" asked Angela, lightly. "But 
 really, what I thought isn't worth talking about." 
 
 "It may not be to you, but it is to me, if you don't 
 mind," he persisted. "I I made sure you'd know why 
 I didn't send you any word or or anything. But if 
 you didn't see it the right way, I've got to tell you now. 
 It was because of course, it was because I just didn't 
 dare butt in. I was afraid you'd feel, if I had the cheek to 
 write a note, or follow up and speak to you in the hotel, 
 that I was kind of takin' advantage of what was an ac- 
 cident my luck in gettin' a chance to do a little thing for 
 you. A mighty small thing; 'twouldn't have been visible 
 except in a high-powered microscope, and only then if you 
 looked hard for it. So I said to myself, "Twas enough 
 luck to have had that chance.' I'd be a yellow dog to 
 presume on it." 
 
 Instantly Angela realized that it was her vanity which 
 had been hurt by his seeming negligence, and that it was
 
 72 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 stroked the right way by this embarrassed explanation. 
 She was ashamed of herself for drawing it out, yet she 
 was pleased; because she had been really hurt. Now 
 that she need not puzzle over the man's motives, she would 
 perhaps cease to think of him. But she must be kind, just 
 for a minute or two to make up for putting him in the 
 confessional, and to prove the gratitude she wished to show. 
 
 "You must be a very modest person, if you didn't 
 understand that I longed to hear lots of things you 
 wouldn't let the newspapers get hold of," she smiled. 
 "Of course, it was interesting to read about that wretched 
 man Dutchy, or whatever they called him. And as 
 he seems to have stolen from heaps of people, I suppose 
 it's well for the world that he'll be shut up in prison 
 although I can't bear the thought of prison for any one. 
 It stifles me. There ought to be some other kind of 
 punishment. But I did want to know what happened in 
 your room after " 
 
 "Nothing much happened," said Nick. "The little 
 beast was all in. I'd kind of got on his nerves, and he 
 knew I'd dig a hole in the ground with him if he so much as 
 peeped. I just rounded him up, and then the police came 
 and played out the rest of the hand. As for you spoilin' 
 my visit to New York, why ma'am, you made it. I had 
 the time of my life." 
 
 Angela laughed, because he called her "ma'am" (which 
 was even funnier than "lady," from the hero who had 
 saved her life), and because all his expressions struck her 
 as extremely "quaint." 
 
 "It was a very short time of your life then. I should 
 have thought you'd want to stay weeks in New York, as
 
 you hadn't been there for so long and you'd travelled 
 so far. You see, I saw in the paper that you'd come from 
 California. And that interested me, because my because 
 dear friends of mine have told me so much about Cali- 
 fornia." She did not add that she was on her way there, 
 but, of course, he might suspect, meeting her in New 
 Orleans, if he were curious concerning her movements. 
 
 "I did mean to stay some time when I went East,'* 
 he admitted, " but well, perhaps I was homesick. Any- 
 how, I felt as if I'd got a hurry call to go home. " 
 
 " What an odd coincidence, our meeting here ! " Angela 
 spoke out her thought. 
 
 "Ye-es," assented Nick. "I reckon it does seem that 
 way." He was interested in the pattern of the carpet. 
 "If you won't think it a liberty, now I am here," he began 
 again, "I'll be mighty glad to try and find your bag- 
 If you'll tell me just how and where you lost it " 
 
 Angela shook her head. "You're not to spend your 
 time fussing with the police, as you did in New York." 
 
 "But I'd like it better than anything," he said. "I 
 didn't come to New Orleans to see the sights, anyhow. 
 I'll feel down and out if you won't let me help. 'Twill 
 seem as if I'd managed wrong in New York." 
 
 "Oh, if you're going to feel like that!" And forthwith 
 Angela told him the story of her loss. 
 
 "All your money and a check-book full of blank 
 checks!" he echoed. 
 
 "Yes. I've wired already to have the checks stopped 
 for the bank's sake. But it's a bore. And I was fond of 
 that bag. Besides, I had about five hundred dollars in my 
 purse. Now I shall have to wait here till I can get more.'*
 
 74 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "You wanted to go?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes to-morrow. However, that doesn't matter." 
 
 "It does, if you wanted to. But, see here, ma'am, I've 
 thought of something." 
 
 "My name is Mrs. May," said Angela, smiling. 
 
 "I know I mean, are you willing I should call you it, 
 just as if I was really acquainted with you?" 
 
 "Of course. Why not?" 
 
 "Well, you see," he explained. "What I don't know 
 about society and the right way to act with ladies could 
 be put in a book bigger than the Bible. And I wouldn't 
 offend you, for for a good deal." 
 
 "I feel certain you'd know the 'right way to act,' by 
 instinct," Angela assured him. "You were splendid to 
 me that night in New York. Very few men would have 
 known how to do what you did." 
 
 "Thank you a thousand times for saying that, though 
 I don't deserve one word," Nick burst out, flushing again, 
 and hoping she did not see, because he had a trying task 
 before him. "But my idea is this. Couldn't you let me 
 lend the money you need, and go on when you like, instead 
 of waiting? You could send) it back, any old way check 
 or anything. And I wouldn't care a hang I wouldn't 
 care a red cent when." 
 
 "Oh, I couldn't " Angela began, but the look on 
 
 his face stopped her. It was so strong a mixture of dis- 
 appointment and chagrin, as to make him instantly pathetic 
 in her eyes. She had just said that he was a man whose 
 instinct would always be right, and she had meant it 
 sincerely. She knew, if she knew anything about men, 
 that here was one of Nature's gentlemen. He had proved
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 75 
 
 that already; and it was a shame to hurt his feelings 
 after all he had done for her. 
 
 "I beg your pardon if I've said the wrong thing. I 
 meant no harm," he apologized warmly. "But I get 
 left-handed and tongue-tied, I guess, when it comes to 
 being civilized where there's a lady in the case. It 
 must have been I said it the wrong way, for I do know the 
 thing itself would be right. You want to go. You've 
 lost your money. And I expect your bank wouldn't send 
 it on a telegram. They mostly won't. That means 
 waiting days, perhaps. So I thought " 
 
 "It would mean waiting," she broke into his pause. 
 " My bank is a long way off. You're very kind, and I vritt 
 borrow the money, if it won't inconvenience you, on 
 condition that you let me give you security." 
 
 "That would hurt my feelings badly," said he; "but 
 I'd rather ^you'd do it than not take the money, because 
 your convenience is a heap more important than my 
 feelings." 
 
 "If I go I can get money hi a few days, and wire it 
 back to you here," Angela reflected aloud, at a loss how 
 to treat the situation when it became a question of hurting 
 Mr. Hilliard's feelings. 
 
 Nick's face fell. "I unless you give me your orders 
 I don't want to stay here very long," said he. "I don't 
 care when I get the money back." 
 
 "Why, you've only just arrived, haven't you?" 
 
 " Ye-es. But I feel my homesickness coming on again. 
 I shouldn't wonder if I'll always be sort of restless, now, 
 away from the West. It's my country anyhow, the 
 country of my heart."
 
 76 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Angela came near saying, "So it is mine." But that 
 might have necessitated explanations. "Well, you must 
 take the security, I'm afraid," she said, "or I can't take 
 the loan. As I told you, I left most of my things in New 
 York, to be sent on when I settle down. Still, there's one 
 thing, which I couldn't pawn, or leave with hotel people. 
 But I wouldn't mind giving it to you. It's a diamond 
 frame for a miniature I always carry with me. I could 
 take the miniature out." 
 
 Nick stared hard at the carpet again. He was afraid 
 to let her see the look on his face. " It's her dead husband's 
 picture," he thought. "She must have loved him, if 
 she always carries his portrait around." Aloud he said, 
 " Very well, if you won't do my way, I'll have to do yours." 
 
 "I'll give you the address of my bank; and I must have 
 your address," Angela went on. "Then, if you should 
 change your mind and stay here " 
 
 "I'm going to stay just long enough to get your bag," 
 he replied. 
 
 She laughed. "That may be forever." 
 
 "I reckon it will be some hours at longest." 
 
 "You must be a wonderful detective!" 
 
 "There's more of the bulldog than the detective in me. 
 But it will go hard if we don't find that bag." 
 
 "Thank you again. We shall see!" she said. "Any- 
 way, as you're to be my banker I can tell the hotel clerk 
 I shan't need to keep people in bathrooms, waiting for 
 my suite, after to-night." 
 
 "Oh, was it you?" exclaimed Nick. "The fellow was 
 telling me a lady wanted to stay " 
 
 "Then it's you they've stuffed into a laundry!"
 
 WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED 77 
 
 "I like it," Nick assured her. "It's a mighty clean 
 place. I wish you could see some of the holes I've slept 
 in that is, I don't wish so ! But it's all right. And now, 
 just say how much money you want. Anythilhg up to 
 three thousand dollars I can give you in a minute " 
 
 "Oh, not nearly so much. A few hundreds. But I'm 
 going to lunch now. Would you care to lunch at the same 
 table, and we can arrange about the loan? Also you can 
 tell me more of Dutchy." 
 
 "I'd like it better than anything," said Nick. "But 
 first I've got to fix things about your bag with the police. 
 I'll be back, and look you up by the time you're halfway 
 to dessert. I remember just what that bag was like, 
 because maybe you've forgotten I picked it up hi the 
 hotel hall when you dropped it. I can see it as plain as 
 if it was here. 'Twas a kind of knitted gold, like chain 
 armour for a doll. And there was a run all smothered in 
 diamonds and blue stones." 
 
 "Sapphires," said Angela. 
 
 "That's right. Well, I'll be back in twenty minutes." 
 
 It was useless to protest against his going, for he had 
 gone before she could speak. And instead of beginning 
 luncheon, Angela went upstairs to take from its diamond 
 frame her father's miniature. On the gold back of this 
 frame there was an inscription: "Angela, on her eleventh 
 birthday, from her father. The day before she sails." 
 And it was because of the inscription that she could not 
 have offered the frame to an ordinary person as security, 
 no matter how desperately she had wanted a loan. But 
 Mr. Nickson Hilliard was not an ordinary person.j
 
 vn 
 
 A POLICE MYSTERY 
 
 IT WAS a blow to Nick to be told that there was little 
 hope of finding the lost bag. He had pledged himself 
 to "see the thing through," but he had reasons im- 
 mensely important reasons they seemed to him for 
 wishing to leave New Orleans next day. 
 
 So far as was known, Cohensohn was an honest man. 
 There was nothing against him, and his shop could not be 
 searched by the police. All they could do was to get a 
 description of the people who had called between the times 
 of Mrs. May's going out and coming in. But ten chances 
 to one, like most women, she had mislaid her bag some- 
 where else, or left it at home. 
 
 Nick did not like these insinuations against the sex to 
 which an angel deigned to belong; but he took them 
 quietly, and instructed the police to offer five-hundred 
 dollars reward for the bag alone, or a thousand with the 
 contents intact. Then he went back and had lunch with 
 Mrs. May, which was, without exception, the most ex- 
 quisite experience of his life. Yet he did not know what 
 he ate, or afterward, whether he had eaten anything at all 
 unless it was some bread which, with bitter disgust at his 
 bad manners, he vaguely remembered crumbling on the 
 table. 
 
 78
 
 A POLICE MYSTERY 79 
 
 He was cheered, however, by a plan he had, and by the 
 inscription on Angela's miniature frame. He would have 
 hated the thing if it had been her husband's. 
 
 Evening came and there was no news of the missing 
 bag. There were not even any satisfactory clues. 
 
 When Nick heard this he thought very hard for a few 
 minutes, and then inquired at what time the shops closed. 
 He was told; and consulting his watch, realized that they 
 would shut in less than an hour. 
 
 "What's the name of the best jewellery store in this 
 town? " he wanted to know. 
 
 There were several which ranked about the same, and 
 scribbling three or four names on his shirt-cuff, he rushed 
 off to find the first. 
 
 "Got any gold handbags?" he asked in a low voice, as 
 if he had something to conceal. "Kind made of chain, 
 with diamonds and sapphires along the top." 
 
 He was shown the stock; saw nothing apparently which 
 struck his fancy, and was off like a shot in search of the 
 next name on his list. 
 
 At this place lived a bag which, so far as he could re- 
 member, seemed the duplicate of Mrs. May's except that 
 the stones alternating with the diamonds were emeralds 
 instead of sapphires. 
 
 "Just keep that thing for twenty minutes," said he. 
 "I'll come back to tell you whether I'll take it or not, and 
 what I want done to it, if I do." 
 
 "Another gentleman was in to-day looking at that bag," 
 said the attendant. " If he comes before you, I must let 
 him have it." 
 
 "W T hat price did you make for him?" asked Nick.
 
 80 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Seven hundred and seventy-five dollars," was the 
 reply. 
 
 "Well, will you do a little gamble? Keep it till I come 
 in, and if I take it I'll pay eight hundred. If I don't, you 
 can have twenty -five dollars interest on your time." 
 
 The attendant laughed. "We don't do business that 
 way. But I guess I can promise to keep the bag till you 
 come back, if you hurry." 
 
 Nick did hurry, and visited three other shops within 
 ten minutes, though they were at some distance from each 
 other. He found nothing to suit him. 
 
 "I'll take that bag, if you can change the stones and 
 put in sapphires instead of emeralds," he announced, 
 somewhat breathlessly, wiping his forehead. "I know it 
 will come dearer. But I'm willing to pay." 
 
 "When would you want it?" asked the shopman. 
 
 "To-morrow morning by ten o'clock at latest." 
 
 "Oh, impossible!" 
 
 "I don't know much about that word," said Nick. 
 "We've cut it out of the dictionary up my way. Offer 
 your men what they want to do night work, and I guess 
 they 11 name a price." 
 
 After all, even in a smart jewellery shop they do not sell 
 a gold bag every day; and a point was stretched to 
 gratify the purchaser, who had a way which made people 
 glad to please him. 
 
 He went back to his hotel, feeling guilty but happy. 
 "She's going to have a gold bag, anyhow," he thought. 
 "I don't believe she'll ever know the difference." And 
 Nick began to rejoice that the old bag would never be 
 found. It would be splendid to know that she was using
 
 A POLICE MYSTERY 81 
 
 a thing he had given her. If the other bag did turn up, 
 the police would let him know. That was arranged; and 
 he would manage somehow. 
 
 "Only to think," he said to himself, "a year ago I 
 might have been as wild to do this deal as I am now, but 
 I couldn't have run to it. This is the first real fun I've 
 got out of my money. Mighty good thing money is 
 though I used not to know it mattered. Dollars, even if 
 I'd a million, could never put me in the same class with 
 an angel. But they give me a chance to travel with her, 
 and that'll be something to remember." 
 
 For Nick had found the angel of his dreams, and had 
 recognized her at first glance that day in the hall of the 
 Valmont. He would have known the angel by her eyes 
 and hair, if nothing else had answered the description; 
 but all the rest belonged to the same picture the picture 
 of his ideal, the girl he had never expected to see in real 
 life. And it was all the more wonderful that her name 
 should be Angel, or something near it. He might not have 
 learned that exquisite detail if she had not given him the 
 diamond frame to hold as security. And to be sure of his 
 security he was keeping it in a pocket over his heart. 
 He knew that this was sentimental, but he did not care a 
 red cent! Indeed, he gloried in it. Soon all would be 
 over, for she was of a world different from his, and pres- 
 ently she would vanish back to her own high place, 
 wherever that might be. He could not have defined the 
 difference between their worlds, if he had been called 
 upon to do so, but he felt it intensely. Still, he meant to 
 make the most of every minute, and he intended to have 
 as many minutes as he could get. Each could be sepa-
 
 82 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 rately treasured as if it were a pearl. He would make a 
 jewel-case of his memory, he told himself, for he was very 
 sure that never would so good a thing come to him again. 
 
 When he reached the hotel it was dinner-time, and 
 hoping that Mrs. May might invite him to her table, as she 
 had before, he dressed carefully, despite his inconvenient 
 quarters. When he was ready, however, his heart failed 
 him. It seemed too good to be true that his luck should 
 hold. She would probably be dining in her own sitting- 
 room, or else she would have had enough of his company 
 earlier in the day. But no, there she was in the restaurant, 
 at the same table where they had lunched together; and 
 after all everything arranged itself very simply. He had 
 to tell her the news of the gold bag his version of it; 
 and hearing that it might be restored, she exclaimed, 
 "You're wonderful! I'm sure it's all through you. It 
 will be nice to have my dear bag again, when I go aboard 
 the train." 
 
 It was a pleasant dinner for both, and each seemed to 
 find out a good deal about the other's likings and dis- 
 likings, though perhaps purposely, perhaps by accident 
 they said singularly little about their own affairs, their 
 past lives, or future intentions. Afterward, in her own 
 room, Angela laughed as she thought over the day and 
 the queer things she had somehow been led into doing. 
 
 "It's too quaint that I should have borrowed money of 
 him!" she said to herself, giggling under her breath like 
 a schoolgirl. "Of course, on top of that, it's nothing at 
 all that I should invite him to lunch and dine. And the 
 funniest part is, it never once seemed queer at the time, 
 or as if I could do anything else."
 
 A POLICE MYSTERY 83 
 
 At all events she had no regrets. The coincidence of 
 Mr. Nickson Hilliard's appearance in New Orleans, just as 
 her hour of need was striking, had given a bright side to 
 what would otherwise have been a disagreeable and sordid 
 adventure. Certainly there was something about him 
 that inspired confidence. She felt that through him she 
 might retrieve her bag; and, if, by chance, the money were 
 intact she could pay him what she owed. He would then 
 return the miniature frame, and it would not be necessary 
 to give her address or say where she was going ! Not that 
 he would misuse such information. She was sure of this 
 now, and she could not help being pleased that he had 
 come back into her life just for one day long enough to 
 explain himself. 
 
 Next morning, at a quarter-past ten precisely, a note 
 was brought to her room. It began: 
 
 "Dear Madam" (Nick had not dared venture upon 
 "Dear Mrs. May"; it had not even occurred to him that 
 he might), and informed her primly that the bag had 
 arrived. Also it inquired in stiff language whether the 
 writer might be permitted to place it in her hands. 
 
 Angela laughed as she read, partly with pleasure be- 
 cause her bag was found, partly because the poor young 
 man's stiffness amused her. She knew enough about him 
 now to understand that it was shyness and ignorance of 
 social customs; but earlier she might have thought she 
 had offended him. "Anyway, he writes a good hand," 
 she thought. "Full of character and strength and not 
 a bit uneducated." 
 
 "Ask Mr. Hilliard to come to my sitting-room," she 
 said to the bellboy.
 
 84 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 A few minutes later Nick appeared, his manner strained 
 in a painful endeavour to hide anxiety. 
 
 "So you've got my bag. How splendid!" Angela ex- 
 claimed, as they shook hands. "I'm sure I have your 
 efforts to thank more than those of the police." 
 
 "No, indeed," said Nick valiantly. "The police of this 
 town are a fine set of men." 
 
 "How did they find it?" she asked eagerly. 
 
 Nick looked grave. 
 
 "Well, it seems there's er a kind of secret con- 
 cerned," he explained. "The thing required is that we 
 don't ask questions. And perhaps you'll agree, for what 
 you want is the bag." 
 
 Desperately obliterating all expression from his face, 
 and hoping that his eyes were not anxious, Nick took from 
 his pocket a gold bag whose diamonds, alternating with 
 sapphires, sparkled as the sunshine struck them. 
 
 Angela accepted it delightedly, with but a superficial 
 glance at the bag itself. ' ' Why, there's something inside ! ' ' 
 she exclaimed 
 
 "Only money," he hurried to break the news. "Not 
 the purse, nor the check-book. I'm mighty sorry, but 
 they're both gone. The police did their best. May get 
 them later." 
 
 Angela opened the bag. "Five hundred dollars," she 
 said counting rapidly. "Now, isn't that odd? I didn't 
 think I had quite so much ! How queer the money should 
 have come back without the purse it was in, and especially 
 the check-book. One would think that would be of little 
 value to a thief." 
 
 "There's no accounting for a thief's ways," said Nick
 
 A POLICE MYSTERY 85 
 
 solemnly. "And I guess a lady can't always remember to 
 a dollar or two what money she had." 
 
 "No-o," Angela admitted. "But it looks different, 
 somehow." She glanced again at the outside of the bag, 
 and Nick's heart jumped. "The bag looks different, too," 
 she said. "Newer, and " 
 
 "As a matter of fact I took the liberty of having it 
 cleaned up before it came back to your hands." 
 
 "But the stones " 
 
 "The worst of it is they had to be put back in again," 
 said Nick. "That gives a different look." 
 
 "The thief had taken out the stones?" 
 
 "Somebody had, anyhow some of them." 
 
 "And I'm not to ask questions! It's the most mysteri- 
 ous thing I ever heard." 
 
 "I expect it's one of those cases where 'the least said 
 soonest mended,' " Nick remarked. 
 
 "But do you know who took the bag, and what 
 happened?" 
 
 "No more than you do. I just had to make the best 
 of a bad business. I hope you don't think I did wrong?" 
 
 "No, indeed. That would be ungrateful. Only it's 
 very strange. I suppose this must be my bag, but " 
 
 "You can take your oath of that, anyhow. And it's 
 your money." 
 
 "More than I thought I had. And the bag looks pret- 
 tier. It's as if I'd cast my bread on the waters and it had 
 returned buttered. One good thing is, I can pay you. 
 Four hundred dollars I borrowed. Here it is." 
 
 Nick had not bargained for this transaction, and it was 
 the last thing he wanted.
 
 86 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "But but you're not leaving yourself enough," he 
 objected. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I can pay for my ticket as far as my first 
 stopping-place. Already I've written the bank to have 
 money to meet me there, and it will be in time, for I shall 
 stay in that town several days. You must take it 
 really." 
 
 He could not refuse, although it meant that he would 
 not have her address, or an excuse for giving his. Slowly 
 he drew the miniature frame out from an inside pocket of 
 his coat. "I kept it there so as to be sure it was safe," he 
 explained, lest the lady should think he had taken a liberty 
 in wearing her property close to his heart. 
 
 Then, with many more thanks from Angela, and pro- 
 testations on his part, they said good-bye. Although the 
 newspapers had told her that Mr. Hilliard lived near 
 Bakersfield, California, she had no association with that 
 part of the State, and it seemed improbable to Angela that 
 she should ever meet the handsome forest creature again. 
 As she had no home she could not, even if it seemed best, 
 invite him to call upon her at some future time; but she 
 felt a stirring of regret that her travelling adventure was 
 over quite over now. 
 
 After that she had not much time to think, because 
 there were things to do before she took the train. And 
 then she was in the express, getting settled in a stateroom, 
 which would be hers all the way to Los Angeles. Kate, 
 who was to have a berth in the same car, arranged her 
 mistress's things, and beamed with excitement and joy. 
 They were really going West now she and Timmy the 
 cat: and going West meant getting nearer and nearer to
 
 A POLICE MYSTERY 87 
 
 Oregon. Meanwhile the girl was happy, for she adored 
 Angela. 
 
 When Kate had finished her work everything was de- 
 lightfully compact in the pretty green room, which was 
 almost as big as Mrs. May's cabin on the ship. A white 
 silk dressing-gown hung from a hook. The gold-backed 
 brushes and crystal bottles from her fitted bag were 
 arranged conveniently. There were lilies of the valley in 
 a vase. 
 
 "Where did those flowers come from?" Angela asked. 
 
 "I don't know ma'am. I found them here," said Kate. 
 "Perhaps the railway people supply them to the state- 
 rooms." 
 
 Perhaps they did. But Angela suspected something 
 different. She was touched and pleased. He must have 
 taken some trouble in getting the lilies placed in the right 
 room. And it was like him not to have come forward 
 himself to bid her good-bye. But suddenly the ques- 
 tion sprang into her head how had he found out that 
 she was travelling in this train? 
 
 All the afternoon she watched the Louisiana planta- 
 tions, lakes, and bayous fly by in sunshine and shadow; 
 or she read a novel of the South as it had been in old days. 
 It was an interesting story and held her attention so closely 
 that she was late in going to dinner. When at last she 
 went there was only one chair left, at a table for two. Mr. 
 Nickson Hilliard sat in the other.
 
 vm 
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 
 
 IF EVER there was a blush of guilt, it was Nick's. 
 
 Angela lifted her eyebrows, though she smiled. It 
 would have been ungracious not to smile, and Angela 
 hated to be ungracious. All the youth in her was glad 
 to see him again; but all that was conventional, all that 
 responded to her early training, disapproved of his presence. 
 
 "This is very unexpected!" she exclaimed, wondering 
 if he would say it was a surprise to him, almost hoping 
 that he might say so, because she could then seem to 
 accept his word; which would save bother. 
 
 Nick hung his head. He jumped up when Mrs. May 
 was shown to the table, and did not sit down again until 
 she was seated. Now he disappointed Angela by making 
 no attempt to defend himself. "Will you please forgive 
 me?" he begged. 
 
 This forced Angela to be stern, and she decided to spare 
 him no pang. 
 
 "Forgive you for what?" she asked. 
 
 "For coming," he answered to the first turn of the rack. 
 
 She was coldly puzzled. "But do you mean your 
 being in this train? Surely that can have nothing to do 
 with me." 
 
 Nick was silent for a moment. The dining-car was full,
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 89 
 
 and the waiters all busy. No one had come to take Mrs. 
 May's order. Gathering his mental forces he resolved 
 upon honesty as the best and only policy. ' 'Twould be 
 easy enough to say it had nothing to do with you; that 
 I'd have been travelling by this train to-day, anyhow," 
 he began bravely. "The fact is, I came on board meanin* 
 to try and make you think so, without exactly tellin' lies. 
 But you've asked me a straight question, and I've just 
 got to answer it straight, even if you refuse to speak 
 to me ever again. I'm here because you're here, Mrs. 
 May. But I promise I won't trouble you. And maybe 
 you won't believe me, after my tellin' you this, but it's 
 true; I didn't intend ever to let you see me to-night, 
 and maybe not the whole journey. I only wanted to be 
 on the same train and then, supposin' you should happen 
 to need help any way, I'd be ready." 
 
 "But that's rather too much self-sacrifice," said 
 Angela, looking him full in the face with her dark-lashed, 
 slate-gray eyes. "I'm not alone. I have my maid. I 
 shan't need help." 
 
 "I guess you know I'm not making a self-sacrifice," 
 Nick said honestly. "I'd be gladder than glad to do 
 anything for the first angel I ever met on earth. But please 
 don't be worrying, Mrs. May. This ain't any hold-up. 
 I won't come near you, unless you happen to need a man 
 to look after you. I'll fade away this minute, if " 
 
 "Certainly not!" cried Angela. "It was your table 
 before it was mine. But I don't understand yet. I 
 think it would have been better if you'd finished your visit 
 to New Orleans." 
 
 "I was sure there for the same reason I'm here," Nick
 
 90 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 blurted out. "I guess I have to tell you the whole thing 
 now." 
 
 "You mean you came to New Orleans because I 
 
 "Yes, that's right," he finished for her, when she paused, 
 at a loss for words. "Something made me do it. Some- 
 thing stronger than I am. You were a kind of dissolving 
 view, and I couldn't let it get out of my sight for good. 
 When I heard you'd gone to New Orleans by boat 
 
 "How did you find out?" Angela's sweet voice had 
 a sharp edge. 
 
 "In the travel bureau of the Valmont Hotel." 
 
 "Ah! Was that quite considerate? " 
 
 "I know how it sounds to you. But it wasn't so bad 
 as you think. I inquired as if from a friend of yours, 
 a man I know out home " 
 
 "How how horrid of you! I'd rather you didn't 
 explain any more." Angela's cheeks were bright pink, 
 and she was more beautiful than Nick had ever seen her 
 before, except the night of the burglar, when she had been 
 drowned in the gold waves of her hair, the angel of his 
 dreams. "But you may go on about the rest," she added 
 hastily, when he was struck into silence, without being able 
 to bring in the name of his one excuse, Mr. Henry More- 
 house. "I'd better know the worst. When you heard 
 where I'd gone " 
 
 "Well, I was too late for your ship, because I had to 
 hang on and see Dutchy's case through, so I took the 
 first train I could get when that business was wound up. 
 And in New Orleans I found you. I didn't know for cer- 
 tain where you were going next, but " 
 
 "But what?"
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 91 
 
 "I was pretty sure you were bound for California. 
 And anyhow, wherever it was, I made up my mind to go. 
 Not to bother you no more than if I was your hired man. 
 Just to see you through, from a distance, to know you 
 were all right, and and not to lose sight of you. I of 
 course you can't understand. I reckon no woman could. 
 I don't wonder you're mad. I was dead sure you would 
 be. Yet I had to stand for it." 
 
 "It's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard," said 
 Angela, working herself up to be as angry as she ought to 
 be. "That you should have left New York, after being 
 there only a few days, and oh, it doesn't bear thinking 
 of ! And I'd rather not believe it." 
 
 Again Nick wished to wave the name of Morehouse like 
 a white flag of truce, but the San Franciscan lawyer, lying 
 far away in a New York hospital, seemed too weak to 
 flutter in the breeze of Mrs. May's displeasure. 
 
 "I'd rather have jogged along without tellin' you 
 this," he said. "But as things worked out, it seemed as 
 if I had to speak." 
 
 Angela was silent, busily thinking for a moment. 
 
 "Would you leave the train at the next stop, if I asked 
 you? " she inquired. 
 
 "No. I'd be real sorry, but I wouldn't do that, even 
 if you asked." And here was his chance to use Mr. More- 
 house a chance which might never come again. "I was 
 going to tell you, I do know a man who's acquainted 
 with you, Mrs. May. We came East together. His name's 
 Morehouse, and when he was taken sick, I went to see him, 
 and and had a little talk all the nurses would let me 
 have. I wanted him to write a note I could give you in
 
 92 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 New Orleans, but he wasn't strong enough. He did say I 
 could mention his name when I told him I meant to go 
 back West and look after you; but somehow it never 
 seemed the right time in New Orleans. And now, when 
 I began to explain how I inquired about you at the Val- 
 mont, as if it was from Morehouse, you didn't ' 
 
 "I felt there could be no explanation I'd care to hear," 
 Angela finished for him. "I beg your pardon! Still I 
 don't see why you should take Mr. Morehouse's responsi- 
 bilities on your shoulders for my sake." 
 
 " No, you'll never see that," Nick sighed. "Only, if you 
 could just see your way to forgiving me, I should be mighty 
 thankful. I promise to switch off till you send for me. 
 I'm in the next car to yours, if you should need to if 
 there's anything I could do, between here and Los 
 Angeles " 
 
 "How do you know my journey ends there? Did Mr. 
 Morehouse tell you that, too?" 
 
 "When he and I were travelling East, he said Mrs. 
 May had the notion to see California; and I thought you'd 
 be sure to begin with Los Angeles." 
 
 "You, no doubt, will go on to Bakersfield," remarked 
 Angela coldly, making a statement rather than putting 
 a question. 
 
 "I suppose so, pretty soon," Nick assented, too crushed 
 by the angel's displeasure to be flattered because she 
 remembered where he lived. 
 
 "Of course you will, at once," she announced relent- 
 lessly. " Meanwhile, I hold you to your word, Mr. Hilliard. 
 It was wrong of you to come, and knowing Mr. Henry 
 Morehouse of whom I never heard till after I landed
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 93 
 
 doesn't make it much more sensible. I'm sure your 
 motives were most kind. But you've made a mistake, 
 as you must realize now, and the only way to atone is to 
 to " 
 
 "I know. Keep out of your way. And I've promised. 
 But I don't realize that I've made a mistake, Mrs. May. 
 There's no use sayin' I do; for, in spite of all, if 'twas to 
 do over again, I would. I wouldn't change anything." 
 
 "Then you shouldn't boast of it!" exclaimed Angela. 
 "Confession may be good for the soul of the confessor, 
 but it can be embarrassing for the one confessed to. You 
 oughtn't to have told me why you came. The only thing 
 to save the situation would have been to let me think it 
 was an accident." 
 
 "You wouldn't have thought so long unless I lied. 
 Ought I to have lied?" 
 
 She was rather thankful that the waiter came just then 
 with the menu, and saved her from answering. She 
 ordered her dinner, and the smiling negro turned to Nick. 
 
 "I don't think I want " he began. But Angela 
 
 sternly caught his eye, mutely commanding him to eat. 
 When he had chosen several dishes at random, and the 
 waiter had gone, she reproached him again. " What would 
 people think if you went away in the midst of dinner? 
 There's a man opposite staring at us now! You're not 
 as tactful as you were the night of the burglar. Then, 
 you did just the right thing, cleverly and bravely. For 
 that I can forgive you a good deal but not everything. 
 Now you make one blunder after another." 
 
 " That night in New York you wanted me. This time 
 you don't. I guess that's what makes the difference in the
 
 94 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 quality of my gray matter," said Nick. "I feel riddled 
 with bullets, and they've hit me right where I live. I I 
 suppose you'll never forgive me, will you? If you only 
 half guessed how little I meant to butt in, or be rude, or 
 annoy you, maybe you could, though." 
 
 "Maybe I can by and by; for the sake of your kind- 
 ness in the past." Angela relented. "But not even for 
 that quite yet. And not ever, if you look so stricken that 
 you make people stare." 
 
 "I am stricken," Nick confessed. 
 
 "You deserve to be." She crushed him deeper into the 
 mire. Whereupon the soup arrived, and they began to 
 eat, .and talk politely. Nick had never known before that 
 a man could be wildly happy and desperately miserable at 
 the same time, but now he knew. And he would not have 
 changed places with any other man in the world. "I'm 
 under a spell," he said to himself, "and I wouldn't get out 
 of it if I could." 
 
 At the same moment Angela conjectured that there 
 must be something strange about the air she was breathing 
 in this New World. "It makes one want to act queerly," 
 she thought. "I'm sure I should have acted quite dif- 
 ferently about this whole affair in Europe. It's so easy to 
 feel conventional in places where you've always lived, and 
 where you know everybody. Or is it only because this 
 man's so different from any one else? I thought I was 
 beginning to understand his nature, but now I see I don't. 
 The thing is, I was too nice to him. I oughtn't to have 
 asked him to lunch and dine in New Orleans. That began 
 the mischief. And it was my fault more than his." 
 
 But then, according to the man's own confession, the
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 95 
 
 mischief had begun in New York. "I wish I could make 
 myself enjoy snubbing the extraordinary creature," she 
 went on, as she ate her dinner, throwing an occasional 
 sentence concerning the scenery, or, as a last resort, the 
 weather, to her chastened companion. " But it's difficult 
 to snub a person who's saved your life and lent you money 
 and found your gold bag. That's why he oughtn't to 
 have put me in this position because I owe him gratitude. 
 It's really horrid." And she began to feel sincerely that 
 the New Type had conducted itself unworthily. 
 
 She gave Nick a cool bow when she was ready to go, 
 and left him plunged in gloom, but stubbornly unre- 
 pentant. "It's a tough proposition I'm up against," he 
 thought, "but a man's as good as his nerve. And I'll 
 fight till the next spring rains sooner than let her slip away 
 out of my life." 
 
 It was deep blue dusk when Angela went back to her 
 stateroom, too dark to look out of the window; yet 
 she had lost interest in the book which she had found ab- 
 sorbing earlier in the day. It seemed irrelevant somehow; 
 and though there was no reason why they should do so, her 
 own^iffairs appeared more insistently exciting than before. 
 "It's the call of the West already," she answered her own 
 question. "I hear the voice of my father's country." 
 
 And then her thoughts returned to Nick. 
 
 "I wonder what he is doing now whether I made him 
 see the error of his ways?" she asked herself, stroking 
 Timmy, lent by Kate. And she was not sorry for the 
 forest creature: not sorry at all. It was stupid even to 
 think of him. But in her lap, a splendid plaything for 
 the black cat, was the gold bag. It seemed associated
 
 96 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 with Mr. Hilliard now. Odd, how different it looked 
 since she had got it back! Bigger, somehow, though, of 
 course, it was the same. There couldn't have been a mis- 
 take. Almost mechanically she began to count the jewels 
 set along the mouth of the bag. Fifteen sapphires 
 fifteen diamonds. Why, there had been only twenty-eight 
 altogether! She was sure of that. She had counted 
 them before, in absent-minded moments. What could 
 this mean? Suddenly an explanation of what it might 
 mean flashed into her head. The theory seemed too 
 elaborate yet it would account for the mystery Hilliard 
 had made of the whole matter, and his anxiety that she 
 should not interview the police, or come into contact 
 with them. And the five hundred dollars more money 
 than ought to have been in the bag. She recalled now 
 having mentioned that sum in telling of her loss. And the 
 forest creature had said that he "knew exactly what her 
 bag was like." If he had found a duplicate, and palmed 
 it off upon her, the absence of the check-book and the pres- 
 ence of the money without the purse would be explained. 
 But could he have found a bag, ready-made, so like the 
 lost one as to deceive her until now? She must question 
 him at once. Yet, with her finger on the bell, ready to 
 summon the porter, she paused. Only half an hour ago 
 she had forbidden Mr. Hilliard to come near her. Now 
 she was about to send for him. This would appear to be a 
 triumph for the enemy. " But I'll soon show him it isn't 
 a triumph," she thought, and pushed the electric button. 
 " In the car between this and the dining-car, there's a 
 Mr. Hilliard," she announced when the porter arrived. 
 "Please ask him to come and speak to Mrs. May."
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 97 
 
 "Yes, miss, I'll tell the gen'leman with pleasure," 
 replied the elderly negro, trotting off to cry aloud a name 
 more or less resembling Hilliard. 
 
 Nick, not daring to hope that luck might change so 
 soon, had drifted into the observation car; but a man 
 answered to the call, beckoning the porter. 
 
 "Sure you understood the name right, George?" he 
 inquired. " My name's Millard. What kind of a looking 
 lady is this Mrs. May? " 
 
 The black porter, who was not George, but who had 
 answered to the name a thousand times, smiled a smile 
 like a diamond tiara. "She sure is the prettiest young 
 lady I evah see, sah," said he. "Most ob dese wite ladies 
 look jest alike to me. I cyant tell one ob dere faces from 
 de odders. But dis one my ! I won't forget her in a 
 month o' Sundays." 
 
 "I know who you mean now, and I guess it's Millard 
 she inquired for," said the gentleman of that name. " You 
 got it a little mixed." 
 
 So a minute or two later Angela had her second surprise 
 of the evening. Expecting Nick, and with her first shot 
 prepared, she saw at her stateroom door a man as different 
 as night from day the man who had stared in the dining- 
 car. He had a dyed black moustache, like the brand of 
 Cain, and an air of thinking that women and other animals 
 of the chase were made for him to hunt. 
 
 "Mrs. May, I believe?" he began politely. "I'm 
 Mr. Millard. I think you sent for me. We've met some- 
 where before, and " 
 
 Angela explained matters coldly, in three words; 
 though she fancied that no explanation was needed.
 
 98 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Mr. Millard showed signs of seeking an excuse to linger, 
 but none was granted. Even Timmy was in a dangerous 
 mood, and, as Kate appeared, on her way back from dinner, 
 the gentleman from the next car retired in good order. 
 
 " You saw Mr. Hilliard, who brought my a gold bag 
 to the sitting-room in New Orleans?" Angela said to 
 Kate. "He's in the car between this and the dining-car. 
 Please find him, and let him know that I should like to see 
 him here." 
 
 Kate's quest produced Nick; and Mrs. May did not 
 mention Mr. Millard. She fired her shot without warning. 
 
 "This is not my gold bag." 
 
 Nick's jaw squared itself. "It is your bag," he insisted. 
 
 " Mine had twenty -eight stones. This has thirty. How 
 is that to be explained? " 
 
 "How should I tell?" he echoed, bold as brass. "It's 
 a question for the police." She had scolded him for con- 
 fessing. He would not court the lash again. 
 
 "I wonder if you couldn't tell if you would? I insist, 
 Mr. Hilliard, that you give me the whole truth, if you know 
 it. And I think you must know." 
 
 "I warned you there was a mystery," he mumbled. 
 
 "You gave me the impression that it was a police 
 mystery. Now I believe it was of your making. A little 
 while ago you asked me to forgive you. Don't you see I 
 never can, unless you tell the truth about this wretched 
 bag?" 
 
 "A little while ago you wouldn't forgive me because I 
 did tell the truth." 
 
 She answered like a woman. " That's entirely different." 
 And dimly Nick realized that it would be worse than use-
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 99 
 
 less to ask why. Queer how a woman seemed to want 
 only the things you were just out of! 
 
 "You bought this bag," she stated. 
 
 "Oh, well, it's no use!" groaned Nick. "Once I 
 thought 'twas a fake about little George Washington; but 
 I see now it can be harder to tell lies than truth to some 
 people. I can't tell one to you," the prisoner in the dock 
 confessed. "I did buy the bag, but when yours is found, 
 they'll send it on to me. Then we can change." 
 
 "It will never be found. Oh, how could you? and 
 the five hundred dollars ! your money. How idiotic 
 of me and how you must have laughed when I paid 
 you back the four hundred I owed out of your own 
 pocket." 
 
 "I never felt less like laughing in my life than I did then. 
 Unless it's now." 
 
 "You can't feel as distressed as you've made me feel. 
 I still owe you the four hundred; and another hundred 
 besides. That makes up the five. And the worst of all 
 is, I can't pay you till Los Angeles. But here is the bag." 
 
 "Do you hate me so much you've got to give it back?" 
 Nick's eyes implored mercy from the court. 
 
 "I'm more vexed than I can tell. This is beyond 
 everything! Please take your bag at once." 
 
 "I swore just now it was your bag. And it is." 
 
 "Surely, it's hardly necessary for me to tell you I 
 can't keep it? " 
 
 She held the bag out to him, and when he would have 
 none of it, forced the soft gold mesh into his hand. He 
 let the thing drop, and at the instant of its fall Kate re- 
 turned, hovering uncertainly. She supposed that Mrs.
 
 100 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 May's visitor had gone by this time, and had come to ask 
 for a promised book. 
 
 "Kate, there's been a mistake." Angela said. "This 
 gold bag isn't mine after all, though they look so much 
 alike. Please pick it up from the floor and give it to 
 Mr. Billiard." 
 
 These tactics overmastered Nick. He could not let a 
 woman, be she maid or mistress, grovel on the carpet in 
 his presence. He dived for the bag, and, pale and troubled, 
 handed it to Kate. "It seems this has got to be name," 
 he stammered. "But I don't want it. Will you take 
 the thing? If you won't, it goes out of the window, sure 
 as fate." 
 
 "Oh, ma'am, what will I do?" cried Kate. "Why, 
 it's a rale fortune ! I must I let him throw it out the 
 window? What all them jewels and gold would mean to 
 me and Tim the difference in our lives ! If I won't have 
 the bag some wicked tramp may find and sell it for drink." 
 
 "Do as you choose. It has ceased to be my affair," 
 said Angela. 
 
 "Are you sure you'd fling the bag away, sir, if I say no 
 to it? " the Irish girl implored. 
 
 "Dead sure." 
 
 "Then oh, I must take it! I can't give it up to a 
 tramp, when 'twould buy Tim and me a home. You 
 must be a millionaire, sir, throwing away good money like 
 that." 
 
 "I've got more than I know what to do with, good or 
 bad," said Nick, drowned in gloom. "Thank you very 
 much for taking it. It's real kind of you. And it's a 
 comfort to me the thing'll be of use to some one."
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 101 
 
 He looked at Angela, but she would not see him. And 
 without another word he effaced himself. 
 
 "I suppose that snuffs me out," he muttered, dolefully, 
 returning to his own car. Almost, he was minded to 
 leave the train in Texas to go on by another; or to 
 return to New York and do what he could to forget the 
 hard-hearted angel. But he did not leave the train. He 
 went on doggedly. "I'm hanged if I give up," was his 
 last thought. "It's no soft snap, but I'll make her for- 
 give me before we're through." 
 
 "You'll not be cross with me, ma'am because I couldn't 
 be lettin' him throw away the beautiful bag?" Kate 
 coaxed her mistress. " I seen he would ha' done it. There 
 was fire in his eyes." 
 
 "Yes, he would have done it," Angela echoed. "I'm 
 not cross with you, though I hoped you would refuse. 
 I'd no right to dictate when it meant your sacrificing a 
 lot of money a hundred pounds at least, which would go 
 begging unless you accepted." 
 
 "A hundred pounds!" the girl stammered. "Oh, I 
 didn't know the bag was worth the half of that! Will I 
 give it back to the gentleman?" 
 
 "It's too late. There would only be a scene. He'd 
 refuse to take the thing." 
 
 Kate looked relieved. "Then I'll just try and sell it in 
 the first big city where we're stopping ma'am," she said, 
 with a happy sigh. "You tould me a black cat brought 
 luck!" 
 
 Angela neither slept well nor lay awake well that night. 
 Whenever she closed her eyes she seemed to meet Nick 
 Hilliard's beseeching look; and next day, angrily pushing
 
 102 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 him and his problems out of her mind, she devoted herself 
 passionately to scenery. He must have taken his meals 
 very early or very late, or else had none at all, for not 
 once did she see him in the dining-car. The following day 
 at luncheon, however, he was going out as she came in. 
 She bowed to him coldly, but her heart beat as if some- 
 thing exciting had happened. That night she forgot to 
 set back her watch, and so went to dinner earlier than 
 usual. Not far ahead, also bound for the dining-car, was 
 Mr. Hilliard. She disliked the large tables laid for four; 
 and when he could, her favourite waiter kept a place for 
 Mrs. May at a small table for two persons. Often she got 
 one to herself, but this evening, as she sat down, Mr. 
 Millard appropriated the other chair. Had he not been 
 rather stout, he would have squeezed himself into place 
 before she could protest; but being a tight fit, inadver- 
 tently he gave her time to think. 
 
 "This seat is engaged," she said, raising her voice to 
 reach the ears of Mr. Nickson Hilliard. He turned and 
 saw invitation in her eyes. "I'm keeping your chair," 
 she calmly informed him since between two evils it is 
 wise to choose the less. 
 
 "Thank you," said Nick, as quietly as if it had been a 
 long engagement. 
 
 "Did that galoot annoy you?" he asked, dropping 
 into the seat* 
 
 "No," said Angela. "But I preferred you for a neigh- 
 bour." 
 
 Having explained her motives, she made it clear that 
 conversation was not included, and Nick, knowing that a 
 man in disgrace should be seen and not heard, was silent.
 
 THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 103 
 
 When Mrs. May had finished a light meal, she unbent far 
 enough to say: "It was clever and kind of you to 
 understand. One thing more ! I must have your address 
 at Bakersfield, to send the money." 
 
 Then Nick told her that he lived on a ranch a good 
 many miles from Bakersfield. "I call it the 'Lucky 
 Star Ranch,' " he added. 
 
 "I'll write you from Los Angeles," said she, and became 
 conscious that her last words had been overheard by 
 Mr. Millard. He had seated himself at a table close by, 
 and now glanced up with such an intelligent look that she 
 was sure he had taken in something of the situation. 
 
 When the journey through Texas, New Mexico, and 
 Arizona was over, and the train slowed into the station at 
 Los Angeles, she had cause to remember this incident, for 
 Millard was on the car steps, just in front of her. He 
 caught up the large dressing-bag which the porter had 
 carried out of her stateroom, and, looking back, said: 
 
 "It's my turn to help you a little now, Mrs. May, since 
 your friend's going on farther. You're English, I guess; 
 and if you haven't got anybody to show you around here, 
 you must let me make myself useful." 
 
 "I would rather the porter took all my luggage, please," 
 replied Angela, glancing about for her black friend. But 
 doubtless Mr. Millard had claimed authority, and 
 "George" was giving his services to some one else. 
 
 " Porter isn't here. You'd better let me look after you, 
 and get a carriage," said Millard, whose legitimate busi- 
 ness it was to travel for a manufacturing firm. 
 
 The train stopped, and he jumped off with Angela's 
 dressing-bag, but only in time to have it taken in a business-
 
 104 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 like manner by Nick, who had swung down from his own 
 car while the train was still in motion. 
 
 "It just occurred to me you might be giving yourself 
 a little unnecessary trouble," said he. "I'll see to this 
 lady." 
 
 "I thought you were going on," stammered the com- 
 mercial traveller. 
 
 "Not just yet," Nick spoke mildly, but his eyes looked 
 dangerous, and Mr. Millard thought best to give up the 
 point without further argument. 
 
 "I always have to thank you for something! It's too 
 bad!" laughed Angela, as Nick put her and Kate into a 
 carriage which he had secured. "Good-bye; I suppose 
 it's fated that I must forgive you, as we shan't see each 
 other again." 
 
 With this she put out her hand, hah* friendly, hah* 
 reluctant, and as Nick shook it eagerly, the train moved 
 away. 
 
 Angela gave a little cry. "Now I've made you miss 
 your train! And your luggage!" 
 
 "I won't howl about that," said he. "I'll wire. And I 
 can get another train by and by when I want it," he 
 added under his breath. Then he let the carriage drive 
 away.
 
 IX 
 THE LAST ACT OF THE GOLD BAG COMEDY 
 
 "MAY I go out, ma'am, and see what they'll be givm* 
 me for the gold bag? " Kate asked, when the unpacking 
 for a few days was done at a Los Angeles hotel. 
 
 This was a sore subject with Angela. She believed that 
 she disliked the bag; but also she disliked having it ga 
 out of her life beyond recall. "Think of the money he 
 spent, and the trouble he took!" something seemed to 
 moan in her mind. But with an impersonal air she gave 
 Kate permission, dismissing the past as represented by 
 the Hilliard incident, and plunging into the joy of arrang- 
 ing future motor-cars and trains a future which was to 
 concern her, and Kate, and Kate's cat alone, not Mr. 
 Hilliard. 
 
 A singularly sympathetic and apparently intelligent 
 hotel clerk not only advised a motor for sightseeing in 
 the neighbourhood, but recommended one owned and 
 invented by a friend. It was a "clipper," he said; could 
 do anything but climb trees or jump brooks, and might be 
 hired by Mrs. May, at a reasonable price, for a day, a 
 week, a month, a year. Angela felt bound to say that she 
 should like to see it; and almost before the last word 
 was out of her mouth the garage was rung up by tele- 
 phone. 
 
 105
 
 106 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 The car arrived with startling promptness, and if 
 Angela had been given time to think it might have 
 occurred to her that there was not, perhaps, as much 
 competition for this new invention as the hotel clerk had 
 implied. The inventor, who was driver and chauffeur as 
 well, bore a striking resemblance to a sulky codfish, but 
 his half-boiled eyes lighted up and glittered (even as his 
 car glittered with blue paint), at the prospect of business. 
 Other vehicles were now being produced by a firm who 
 had bought his patent, said he, but at present his own; 
 appropriately named the "Model," was the "only one 
 running." He lifted the brilliant bonnet, and revealed 
 intricate things, all new and silvery and glistening like 
 crystallized sugar. Angela fell an easy victim. She knew 
 nothing about the mechanical virtues and vices of cars, 
 though she had two at home for her own use, and the 
 Prince a dozen, valued only less than his aeroplanes. 
 Hers had been gray and dark green. She had always 
 wanted a blue car, and this was a lovely colour. Though 
 she was no more vain than a pretty young woman ought 
 to be, she consented to an experimental run, with an 
 undertone of conviction that the car would become her as 
 a background. 
 
 As she made her decision, Kate arrived, breathless with 
 the excitement of bargaining, to find her mistress on the 
 curbstone. 
 
 "Oh, ma'am!" she panted. "I've done it! I've got 
 five hundred dollars in me pocket!" 
 
 "And they've got the bag," Angela regretfully mur- 
 mured. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am, they have. Unless they've sold it since.
 
 LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY 107 
 
 Such a fine jewellery shop. The name an Oirish one, and 
 I went there first, for luck. Then I tried another place, 
 but they offered less, and I ran back to Barrymore's. 
 They said 'twas a splendid bag, and they'd 'a give more, 
 but they haven't the same call for the article as if 'twas 
 Paris or New York; and they must make their profit." 
 
 "No doubt they will make it," Angela almost snapped. 
 She felt as a certain type of woman feels on hearing that 
 the first man who ever proposed to her has married some 
 one else. And when the codfish, whose name was Sealman, 
 asked her where she would go for a trial spin, she said that 
 he might take her to the shop of Barrymore the jeweller. 
 But that was when Kate had disappeared into the 
 hotel. 
 
 The automobile ran quietly, and the springs, as the cod- 
 fish said, were "grasshoppers." The motor made a 
 pleasant purring, not much louder than Timmy's when 
 you scratched his head through the open roof of his basket. 
 It was a small car, but as Angela wanted it only to run 
 about the neighbouring country, keeping Los Angeles as a 
 centre, she began to think that she might as well engage 
 it. After the poor codfish had given her this run for 
 nothing, how could she disappoint him? 
 
 Exactly what she meant to do when she stopped before 
 the shop of Thomas Barrymore & Company she could 
 not have explained, even to herself. Perhaps she had the 
 curiosity to see how the bag would look in the window, in 
 case the jeweller had placed it there; and sure enough, he 
 had displayed it, anxious not to miss a sale. There were 
 other gold bags, but this one of many adventures 
 was by far the most beautiful; and suddenly she knew why
 
 108 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 she had come. She was going to buy the thing for herself. 
 She could not bear to let any one else own that bag. 
 
 Of course, if she had been sensible and businesslike, 
 she might have told Kate before selling to inquire at 
 some shop what would be a fair price; and then she might 
 have offered the girl that amount. Now she must pay 
 for her pride; and having less than half the income of the 
 Princess di Sereno, Mrs. May ought to have been thinking 
 about the California land she wished to purchase before 
 committing useless extravagances which she could no 
 longer afford. Besides, if she bought back the bag, she 
 would always be ashamed to use it under the eyes of 
 Kate. 
 
 She pointed it out to one of the Barrymore assistants, 
 who said it had just arrived from Paris, and the price was 
 seven hundred and fifty dollars. For her life, Angela 
 could not have contradicted him or haggled. Luckily, or 
 unluckily, her money had come from San Francisco. It 
 served her right, she thought, to pay two hundred and 
 fifty dollars more than if she had dealt with Kate. She 
 should have been ashamed even to want Mr. Hilliard's 
 bag, still more to buy it; and she took away her purchase 
 in a beautiful box, with all the joy of a normal female 
 thing who has secured for her own something which she 
 ought not to have. When Angela di Sereno had been able 
 to afford everything, she had longed for nothing. There 
 was a new spice in life. And the redemption of the bag 
 was to be a dead secret. 
 
 "Back to the hotel, please; and I'll engage your car 
 for the next three or four days," said Mrs. May to Sealman, 
 suddenly full of kindness for him and all the world.
 
 LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY 109 
 
 Nick sat in the window of a better hotel than Angela's. 
 She had chosen hers on the advice of a lady in the din- 
 ing-car, a lovely blonde, nte brunette, who had once en- 
 joyed a honeymoon in Los Angeles, and was now on her 
 way Nevadaward to get a divorce. Nick had been to 
 Los Angeles before, and knew where to go without asking 
 advice, though the same lovely lady would have been 
 enchanted to give him some. Mr. Millard was also in his 
 hotel, and would not move to Mrs. May's (although it was 
 cheaper, so long as Nick remained on guard. That was 
 one of the reasons why Nick stayed. But there were others. 
 His luggage he had wired for, and it would come back. 
 
 He sat by the window, wondering whether Mrs. May 
 would be angry if he showed himself; or whether, on the 
 principle that a cat may look at a king, she would consider 
 that he had as much right to be in Los Angeles as she had. 
 
 Then she flashed by in the blue automobile, which was 
 as becoming as she had expected. Nevertheless, Nick 
 jumped up from the chair in which he had been lounging, 
 and frowned. "Great guns! If there ain't that bandy- 
 legged, crop-eared, broken-nosed auto Sealman came to 
 offer Mrs. Gaylor last winter, and wanted to palm off on 
 me!" he grumbled to himself. "How in creation did 
 that maverick get hold of Mrs. May? Bet there've been 
 bribes flyin' around somewhere." 
 
 Angela, being on the way back to her hotel from Barry- 
 more's when Nick caught sight of her, had returned by 
 the time he strolled in to ask if Mr. Sealman was staying 
 there. Mr. Sealman was not; but the clerk admitted 
 acquaintance with him. 
 
 "I want to know if his car's engaged," began Nick.
 
 110 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Yes, the clerk happened to know that it was engaged 
 for the next three days, perhaps longer, to a young lady 
 in the hotel who intended to do some touring in the 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 "Contract all fixed up?" asked Nick. 
 
 Everything was arranged; had just been settled; in 
 fact, Mr. Sealman had gone home. 
 
 Nick stood still and thought for a moment, looking as 
 sad as if he had earnestly desired the Model for himself, 
 which was, of course, the impression conveyed. As he 
 reflected (not so much wondering what he wanted to do 
 next, as whether the thing he wanted to do would "work") 
 Kate came down, with a letter in her hand ready to post 
 to Mr. Timothy Moriarty, White Orchard, Oregon. 
 
 "Oh, sir!" she exclaimed, flitting up to Nick. "P'raps 
 you don't remember me, but I'm maid to Mrs. May, and 
 'twas to me you gave that beautiful bag you said you'd 
 throw out o' window if I didn't take it. Ye don't mind if 
 I sold it, do ye?" 
 
 "Of course not," Kick assured her. "I gave it to you 
 for that." 
 
 "I thought so, sir; and I've done fine with it to-day. A 
 gentleman named Barrymore, who keeps a smart jewellery 
 shop, paid me five hundred dollars. I'm all in a flutter, 
 sir! Just to think, it's the same as if you'd give me the 
 money." 
 
 "Not a bit of it," said Nick. "Some cow might have 
 swallowed the bag by this time if you'd let me chuck it 
 out of the car window. Or a goat, maybe." 
 
 "Well, thank you again a thousand times. And what 
 with you, and my lady, Mrs. May, I'm the happiest girl
 
 LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY 111 
 
 in the wurruld." And Kate tripped away to post her 
 letter. 
 
 " 'My lady, Mrs. May,'" echoed Nick, beneath his 
 breath. "She's my lady, too my angel though she 
 doesn't know it. And nothing can change that till 
 doomsday." 
 
 He had hated the gold bag when it was rejected by 
 Angela; but now he felt differently. His heart warmed 
 toward it. Had it not been hers, if only for a little while? 
 It had hung on her wrist. It had been in her hand. It 
 had held her lace handkerchief, which smelled like some 
 mysterious flower of fairyland. Now he knew what he 
 had come to learn, there was nothing to keep him any 
 longer; and, walking out of the hotel, he asked the first in- 
 telligent-looking man he met where to find Barrymore's. 
 
 "A young lady in black, in a blue auto, sir, bought the 
 bag you must have seen in the window," he was presently 
 informed by the youth who had served Angela. "A 
 young lady with golden hair. You might almost have 
 met her on the way." 
 
 "I rather think I did meet her," drawled Nick. And 
 though the bag was gone forever, he was suddenly so 
 happy that he could have sung for joy. He hurried away 
 to telegraph Henry Morehouse, at Doctor Beal's Nursing 
 Home, asking a favour which he was sure Moretouse 
 would grant, because they had grown very friendly on the 
 journey East. Next, he called at the largest garage in 
 Los Angeles, and asked advice of the manager about 
 buying a motor-car. "You wrote me in the winter, saying 
 you had a fine one here to dispose of," he said. "Maybe 
 you remember?"
 
 112 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Remember? Why, of course, the manager remembered 
 Mr. Hilliard! Every one had been talking of his Lucky 
 Star gusher. 
 
 Nick laughed. "A right smart lot of letters wanting 
 me to buy things came along about that time. I hadn't 
 got any use for an auto then. Now I have. And I want 
 a good one, for touring. The best there is." 
 
 "Any make you fancy? " 
 
 "I don't know much more about motors than elephants," 
 Nick confessed. "No use pretendin' to be an expert, but 
 I'm going to learn the whole game from A to Z." 
 
 "I've got a machine here now," said the man of the 
 garage, "that might suit you if you want something first- 
 rate. Belongs to a millionaire who went broke before he'd 
 had his auto a week. Best American on the market, and 
 better than new. She's found herself. Come and have a 
 look at her." Nick went. "She" was a beauty, inside 
 and out a pale primrose yellow. 
 
 "Almost the colour of her hair," he thought. 
 
 "I must have a shuvver to overhaul the machine, 
 until I've been put wise," he said, when, after some dis- 
 cussion, he had agreed to buy the yellow car if it were 
 satisfactory. "But I want to learn to drive right away. 
 I'd sure be on pins and needles, sittin' like a duke, in 
 behind, with somebody else at the helm. How long will 
 it take me? I'm pretty quick at pickin' up new things." 
 
 "Can you drive a horse? " the man inquired. 
 
 Nick laughed. "I can worry along some." 
 
 Few men in California knew more about horses than he. 
 
 "Well, then, you'll get the trick of steering sooner. 
 Six or seven lessons might do you."
 
 LAST ACT OF THE COMEDY 113 
 
 "Lessons of an hour or two?" 
 
 "Well, yes. That's about it." 
 
 "Suppose I pay extra, and practise extra? If I keep 
 at it all day and every day, will I be warranted safe and 
 kind after, say, four lessons? I can have several men to 
 teach me maybe, if I tire one out." 
 
 " But you're only one man. Keeping at it like that you'd 
 feel a strain." 
 
 "No, I wouldn't," said Nick. "I'd have a doze or two 
 and a sandwich or two in between spins. No harder work 
 than a round-up." 
 
 "All right, then. In four days like that you'll be a 
 dandy driver, I promise you, Mr. Hilliard," said the man 
 of the garage. 
 
 "Fit to drive ladies?" 
 
 "Fit to drive a queen." 
 
 "That's what I want to do," mumbled Nick under 
 his breath.
 
 WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING 
 
 THE next five days Angela spent in seeing the country 
 her father had helped to create, and in breaking down 
 in the blue motor-car at brief and inconvenient intervals. 
 At first they were unexpected intervals; but soon they were 
 taken for granted; for the more she knew of Mr. Sealman's 
 invention the less was Angela surprised at anything it 
 chose to do. The Model was a model of all the vices. It 
 smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, and developed, 
 one after another or all together, every malady to which 
 motor-metal is heir. The stages of the way, even to the 
 Mission of San Gabriel, in its sleepy old Mexican village 
 on the fringe of Los Angeles, were punctuated with disasters. 
 A burst tire was a comma; carburetor trouble a colon; 
 nervous prostration of the sparking-plug a period. But 
 Mr. Sealman never lost confidence. He explained every- 
 thing, justified himself and the car; told anecdotes of his 
 courage, and let fall pathetic words concerning an invalid 
 mother dependent on him and his success. 
 
 "I'm a pioneer, I tell you," he said. "You and I are 
 making history this minute." 
 
 Angela would gladly have turned from so lurid an 
 occupation to any other pursuit; but Mr. Sealman looked 
 as if his health were more fragile than that of the car. 
 
 114
 
 WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING 115 
 
 When he clawed obscurely at the crystallized sugar orna- 
 ments under the bright bonnet of the fainting Model, his 
 air looked so dejected, his eyes so hollow, and his smile 
 so wan that Angela's fury melted into pity. Passionate 
 resolves to shed him and his blue abomination died within 
 her as she watched his struggles. His whole future de- 
 pended, he said, on the Model. If Mrs. May should 
 throw him over and hire another car, the news would fly 
 like lightning from garage to garage of Los Angeles ; indeed, 
 from end to end of California. He would be ruined. His 
 mother, who had been forbidden excitement, would, with- 
 out doubt, die of heart failure. 
 
 The heart of Angela failed also, again and yet again. 
 She began to see that Mr. Sealman had cast himself for 
 the part of Old Man of the Sea, in a travel drama of which 
 she was heroine. She felt alone in the world. "It will 
 probably end in my having to buy the little blue brute 
 and burn it," she thought. "But even then the codfish 
 will probably insist on being my butler." 
 
 These gloomy forebodings shadowed her mind one 
 morning when the Model broke down about half a mile 
 from fantastic little Venice, the Coney Island of South 
 California. In a rage she got out and walked, past a 
 kaleidoscopic pattern of tiny bazaars, shooting-galleries, 
 paper icebergs, and cardboard mountains. She threaded 
 her way through a good-natured crowd of tall, tanned 
 young Americans, pretty girls with wonderful erections of 
 golden hair, dark-faced Mexicans, yellow-faced Japanese, 
 a few Hindus and negroes. Then, by the pier, she saw an 
 old Spanish galleon disguised as a restaurant, and drifted 
 in to lunch on fried sand-dabs attractively advertised in
 
 116 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 big black letters. How old, how Spanish, and how galleon 
 the craft might really be, none could tell or would. 
 But the sand-dabs were delicious; and from the queer 
 window near her table a window cut in the ship's side 
 she could see the Pacific, blue in distance, green where 
 it tossed white foam-blossoms on a beach of gold. 
 
 "Breakdowns would be fun if I'd some one to laugh at 
 them with me," she thought; and her mind conjured 
 up the image of Nick Hilliard, seating him opposite her 
 at the little table. 
 
 She had ordered him home and he had apparently 
 obeyed; which seemed unkind and poor-spirited, and 
 altogether unlike him. Ever until now he had been at 
 hand to save her from all that was disagreeable. Even 
 at Los Angeles he had jumped off the train to circumvent 
 Mr. Millard. His ways had been like the ways of story- 
 book heroes, who, by some extraordinary coincidence, 
 invariably appear in time to rescue the heroine from a 
 villain, a mad bull, a runaway horse or a burning house. 
 The only difference was that Mr. Hilliard could not possi- 
 bly be the hero of this story, and his opportune arrival was, 
 on his own confession, never a coincidence. He came on 
 purpose; and that was bad taste. But as he had done it 
 so often, why couldn't he have transgressed just once 
 again, to rescue her from Sealman? 
 
 She thought of the tall forest creature with yearnings, 
 which interfered with her appetite for sand-dabs. He 
 might unobtrusively have stayed, she thought, and put 
 himself at her service. Not the most clinging Old Man 
 of the Sea could continue to cling if that square-chinned 
 bronze statue pointed out the wisdom of letting go. But
 
 WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING 117 
 
 no doubt he was at home near Bakersfield, before this 
 Angela seldom named Nick in her mind otherwise she 
 must have run across him somewhere that first day at 
 the City of the Angels when she had spun gaily from park 
 to park, the Model for once behaving well. Almost, she 
 had expected to see him the next morning when the car 
 refused to move, and she had taken a trolley car, halfway 
 to San Gabriel. It would have seemed appropriate, some- 
 how, to meet him strolling in front of the Mission, his 
 hands in his pockets, gazing up at the beautiful half- 
 ruined facade, with its delicate chain-armour of gold 
 lichen, its tower, and its flowers like blossoming barnacles. 
 
 Angela knew now that she had felt certain of meeting 
 Hilliard "accidentally," in the Mission church. That 
 while she walked beside the elderly Spanish verger, chatting 
 of his native Cordova, listening to tales of Father Juniperra 
 Serra, Father Somera, and the legend of the Indians with 
 the miraculous portrait of the Madonna, she had started 
 more than once at a footfall, fancying it that of her lost 
 hero. 
 
 Of course, if he had ventured to show himself at any 
 time she would have known that it was no coincidence; 
 and she would have lifted her eyebrows in silent reproach, 
 talking more earnestly to the verger, who had been happy 
 because she knew Cordova and all his beloved Spanish 
 cathedrals. Nevertheless, the bronze statue would have 
 fitted well into the scene, and something lacked because 
 it was absent. 
 
 "I do think he might write from his ranch and acknowl- 
 edge the money I sent him," she told herself now, neglect- 
 ing the sand-dabs to stare through the galleon window at
 
 118 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 the floating seaweed on the tide-dark gold-green kelp, like 
 lost laurel-wreaths torn from the brows of drowned 
 divinities. "I posted the letter myself, that first day. He 
 must have got it if he is at home." 
 
 Just then a tall, dark young man walked into the ship- 
 restaurant, taking off a sombrero. Angela gathered her- 
 self together, ready to administer a gentle snub. But she 
 might have saved herself the trouble. It was not Nick. 
 She could have cried with disappointment. Snubs of the 
 past were coming home to roost. 
 
 There was time to buy California jewels in the bazaars 
 tourmalines and pearl-blisters before the car came 
 up, purring sweetly, and looking innocent as a cat gorged 
 with canary birds. Mr. Sealman was so sure that nothing 
 could or would go wrong ever again that Angela had no 
 heart to receive him coldly. 
 
 They started off for a run through bungalow-land, and 
 the Model conducted itself like a newly converted sinner. 
 
 "I've been thinking out a dandy plan, while I was 
 tinkering on the auto," remarked Mr. Sealman in an 
 engaging manner. "What do you say to doing a tour of 
 the Missions? You know, I guess, there's a chain of 'em, 
 and the fine thing it would be to see the lot by road! I 
 tell you, this little auto's going to be all right all right. 
 It'd be the best kind of a stunt for a lady from Europe; 
 and if the papers got hold of it, I bet they'd give us a bang- 
 up notice a photo too, maybe, you could send your 
 friends on the other side." 
 
 Angela shuddered. She could hardly bear even to hear 
 this proposal from the codfish, for a pilgrimage to the 
 Missions of California had been a dream of Franklin
 
 WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING 
 
 Meiriam 's. He and she were to have followed the foot- 
 steps of the Franciscan Fathers, stage by stage; and if a 
 Mission here or there were falling into ruin, Merriam had 
 talked of offering to restore it at his own expense. Now 
 the money had gone to restore the Palazzo di Sereno, 
 and to buy motors and aeroplanes and ladies' favours for 
 the Prince of that name. Yet some day Angela meant to 
 make the pilgrimage, when she had built her house and 
 given herself a starting-point. 
 
 "I've other things to do," she replied coldly. "I shall 
 see only the Missions I may happen to pass on this tour." 
 
 "Well, some folks'd ruther save this trip for a weddin' 
 journey," Sealman suggested. "I suppose widows have 
 weddin' trips, don't they?" He gazed thoughtfully at 
 the gray coat and gray-veiled motor hat which Angela 
 wore to protect her from the dust. She sat in front beside 
 the chauffeur for the motion of the car was less there, 
 but she decided that, if she were ever hypnotized into 
 associating with the Model again, she would take the back 
 seat. 
 
 "The Missions for mine," he went on, when his passen- 
 ger made no reply. " There's some prefers the Yosemite, 
 but there's no motorin' there. And if I was a girl I wouldn't 
 feel married without a motor. In the Yosemite there's 
 so much honeymoonin', the minute you see a lady with a, 
 man you put 'em down for bride and groom." 
 
 Angela had cause to remember this remark later. 
 
 "Speakin' of honeymoons, looks as if there'd been 
 some around here," the codfish continued chattily. 
 
 They were running about through the suburbs of Los 
 Angeles, and if Sealman 's passenger had deigned to answer
 
 120 
 
 she would have been compelled to agree. It was ideal 
 honeymoon-land; a moving picture, painted in colours, 
 seemingly by rival artists of different nations, for the 
 mingling of effects was mysterious as the scenery of 
 dreams. 
 
 Just as Angela told herself that it was like Holland in 
 the jewel-box neatness of little streets and little houses 
 behold the Riviera, with groups of palms among tropical 
 flowers, and feathery pepper-trees, graceful and large as 
 giant willows! Then, when she had decided on Italy or 
 Southern France as a simile, far-off, sharp mountain 
 peaks, a dark, grotesquely branching pine in filmy distance, 
 and a doll's house with a red pointed roof, suggested a 
 sketch on a Japanese fan. 
 
 This was a spick-and-span little world for a perpetual 
 honeymoon, and at the entrance of the streets there should 
 have been signs, Angela thought, saying, "No one but 
 brides and grooms need apply." It was all distractingly 
 pretty; and though Angela had already admired the big 
 handsome houses of Los Angeles and Pasadena, these rose- 
 bowered bungalows caught her fancy more. After all, 
 there is a sameness about millionaires' mansions the whole 
 world over; but here was something new, invented by 
 California. 
 
 Cupid himself might have been the architect so daintily 
 was each little dwelling planned for the happiness of two 
 lovers; so, of course, all the women who lived in these 
 houses must be young and beautiful. All the men must be 
 handsome, and husbands and wives must adore each other. 
 No creatures old or fat or inclined to be disagreeable 
 would dare come house-hunting here; or if they did come,
 
 WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING 121 
 
 surely some wise suburban by-law would rule them out! 
 Once in, as residents, the happy lovers would remain for- 
 ever young. 
 
 "It's to be Riverside to-morrow, ain't it?" Sealman 
 inquired, when, full two hours later than she had expected, 
 he brought her back to the door of her hotel. 
 
 Angela hesitated. In California, at most times of year, 
 it is hopeless to use the weather as a handle to hang an 
 excuse upon. She looked at the sky. It was a vast in- 
 verted cup of turquoise. 
 
 "Are you sure the car is equal to so long a run?" she 
 asked mildly. 
 
 The likeness between Mr. Sealman and a codfish became 
 so marked that Angela feared he was going to be ill. 
 
 "You don't know what the car can do," he answered 
 reproachfully. 
 
 "Perhaps not," she admitted. "Very well, we'll start 
 at eight." 
 
 "Better make it earlier." 
 
 She made it earlier, and was actually ready; but at 
 half-past eight Sealman appeared on foot. Of the car's 
 health he said nothing, but of his mother's health he said 
 much. She had suffered a relapse. The doctor had been 
 with her all night. How Sealman was going to pay the 
 bill he did not know. Would Mrs. May go to Santa Cata- 
 lina Island this morning, and to Riverside to-morrow? 
 There was time to catch the boat. 
 
 The doctor's bill was a trump card. Angela consented 
 to wait for Riverside, and she took Kate to that fair 
 island loved by Californians, and by fishermen all over 
 the world.
 
 122 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 The name Avalon alone would have lured her; for who 
 would not set sail for Avalon at a moment's notice? 
 
 Santa Catalina is Corsica in miniature, Corsica without 
 Napoleon or vendetta. But it has sea-gardens, fathoms 
 deep under green water, where flowers bloom and fish 
 glitter in a dazzle of jewelled armour beneath the glass 
 floors of flat-bottomed boats. The fishermen were catch- 
 ing yellow-tail that day, too, just as Franklin Merriam 
 had caught them in his time; and his daughter went back 
 to Los Angeles full of thoughts of him. 
 
 To-morrow was to be held sacred to her father's memory; 
 for his old home, vanished off the face of the earth now, 
 had been near Riverside. Angela wanted the day to be 
 perfect, unmarred by trouble or vexation; and though 
 she had her fears, when morning came the Model started 
 off so well that hope began to rise. 
 
 Making a detour, they spun past the old Mission San 
 Gabriel, where she had arrived ignominiously by trolley 
 four days ago; and turning for a look at the facade, 
 Angela saw a yellow car drawn up in the fleecy shadow of 
 a pepper-tree. A chauffeur sat next the driver's empty 
 seat, apparently half asleep. 
 
 "That's the motor I wanted to ask you about, a day or 
 two ago," Angela said, bending forward to speak to Seal- 
 man for she had kept her resolution to sit behind him. 
 "It's the handsomest I've seen; and we've met it several 
 times; two men in it always, in chauffeur's caps and 
 goggles." 
 
 "Oh, that car!" remarked the inventor with indiffer- 
 ence. "That's what we call Smith's Folly. Thad Smith, 
 a fellow who made a pile of money, had the thing built to
 
 WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING 123 
 
 order, and it brought him bad luck lost every cent the 
 day she was finished, and he's been trying to sell her ever 
 since. / wouldn't take her for a present." 
 
 Angela leaned back, hiding a smile behind her motor 
 veil. She did not believe that Mr. Sealman would have 
 the offer. His little car looked a badly made toy com- 
 pared with that golden chariot. She wondered if it had 
 been sold, or if it would be worth while to make inquiries. 
 Somebody was perhaps trying it, she thought, for often 
 it followed the road taken by Sealman; or, when their 
 car broke down, as it usually did, the yellow giant shot 
 ahead, disappeared and occasionally appeared again. 
 
 "I should like to find out if it's still for sale, "she said to 
 herself, gazing back admiringly. "Why shouldn't I have 
 a motor of my own? " 
 
 As the Model trundled her out of sight, a man walked 
 round the corner, and, springing into the yellow car, took 
 the driver's seat.
 
 XI 
 
 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 
 
 NICK had not been visiting the Mission that day. 
 But he had been there before, gabbling fluent Spanish with 
 the verger. This was more than Angela could do, though 
 she knew the cathedrals of Spain! In the morning Nick 
 had made an early start with his new car, and, after four 
 long days of constant practice, at last he experienced the 
 joy of confidence in himself, at the wheel. He was now 
 licensed to drive, and the yellow automobile was his, 
 body and soul. 
 
 The chauffeur, a reedy and extremely young youth, with 
 a sharp nose and a keen sense of humour, had scraped 
 acquaintance with Sealman. Without giving away any 
 information on his side, he had always contrived to find out, 
 if not where the Model was going, at least where it was 
 hoped she might go. It was to be Riverside to-day; and 
 after a preliminary spin from six to eight, Nick had been 
 lingering near the Mission, paying a friendly visit to the 
 owner of the Big Grapevine and the Trained Owls. This 
 man was the most taciturn of mortals. But something 
 behind the locked windows of his soul recognized a con- 
 genial spirit in the open windows of Nick Hilliard's, and 
 the two had made friends years ago. The morning's call 
 was a renewal of old acquaintance; and the sea-green 
 
 124
 
 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 125 
 
 light under the Grapevine was as clear as on another 
 May day, when Nick was six years younger. The alli- 
 gators were larger; but the white-faced owls were un- 
 changed unless perhaps a little wiser, a little more 
 instructed in the oldest secrets of an old, secretive world. 
 
 " See the way that white- veiled witch stares at me with 
 her golden eyes?" said Nick. "Wish I could flatter my- 
 self she remembers me." 
 
 "Of course she remembers," said her master, "She's 
 the same one told your fortune when you were here before." 
 
 "I asked her if I was going to amount to anything in 
 the world, and she nodded her head three times. I felt 
 like sending her a present when Gaylor made me foreman, 
 and again when I got my ranch. She ought to have had 
 a diamond crown when the gusher came. But, like an un- 
 grateful beast, I forgot all about her." 
 
 "She knows her business," said the Grapevine man. 
 "Three nods mean three big strokes of luck." 
 
 "Good king!" exclaimed Nick. "I hope that doesn't 
 mean I'm not going to have any more than three?" 
 
 "Anything you want in particular?" 
 
 "Well, yes, there is something I'm sort of set on." 
 
 "Ask" her if you get your wish." 
 
 Nick fixed his eyes upon the owl. 
 
 "Do I get my wish?" 
 
 She sat motionless on her perch for a moment, con- 
 sulting her oracle. Then she suddenly lifted her wings 
 and flapped violently. 
 
 "Is that the best answer you can give?" Nick re- 
 proached her. 
 
 The owl repeated the gesture.
 
 126 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "I guess you want something she doesn't approve of," 
 said the Grapevine man. 
 
 "She might give me a civil 'yes' or 'no.' See here, you 
 Witch of Endor do I get my wish? " 
 
 The owl closed her eyes, then opened them with a 
 sudden flash of gold, but would neither nod nor shake her 
 head. 
 
 "She knows, but she won't tell," said her master. 
 "Maybe she doesn't want to upset your feelings." 
 
 "She can't scare me with her mysteries," Nick laughed. 
 "I'm going right ahead on the same lines." Then he said 
 good-bye to his friend and went out to his motor. But 
 there was enough of the boy in him to be disappointed 
 because the white witch had refused an answer. 
 
 The car had a proud way of dismissing the landscape 
 impatiently, if given her head; but as her new owner was 
 not out to show what he could do, she was compelled to 
 crawl when she would have flown, like Pegasus harnessed 
 to the plough. 
 
 To-day, the task of subduing herself was not so painful 
 as usual, for the blue car went on mile after mile, through 
 the far-stretching orange groves, without a stop; and 
 Nick enjoyed driving. 
 
 "Wish I could remember," he thought, "how I felt 
 when I was a kid, and walked alone across a room the 
 first time without tumbling on my nose. I wonder if it 
 was as good as this?" 
 
 "This" was very good indeed, and would have been 
 good anywhere for Nick was, according to his own way 
 of putting it, a "crank" about doing well whatever he 
 undertook, and he knew now that he had conquered the
 
 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 127 
 
 machine but on such a road, and in the light and shade 
 of orange groves, it was superlative. 
 
 The vast plain, walled with mountains, was an endless 
 city of domed green temples, richly decorated with the 
 gold of the late orange crop. Beyond its boundary were 
 vines, cut close in Spanish fashion, which perhaps the 
 Fathers had taught in Mission days; and there were tall, 
 pink-trunked eucalyptus trees from whose wood beautiful 
 furniture could be made; then cities of green and golden 
 temples again, in a desert-frame of tawny yellow. Every- 
 thing that was not green was golden. The sun poured 
 gold; oranges blazed in golden splendour; and California 
 poppies, golden with orange hearts, swept in a yellow flame 
 over the landscape. 
 
 "Gold under the earth, and gold over the earth," 
 thought Nick. "That's California!" And he thought, 
 too, of the gold of Angela's hair. "She'd look mighty well 
 in this yellow car, floating along among the white and gold 
 of oranges and orange-blossoms, all white and gold her- 
 self," he said. "And she's going to look well in it. That's 
 what I got it for. That's what I've been working for till 
 this auto's fit to eat out of my hand. And gee! but I've 
 been going some!" 
 
 He grinned under his motor mask as he recalled the 
 strenuous hours. He had enjoyed them, but he had hated 
 the mask; and so soon as the time came he thought it 
 must come soon when he could reap the reward of labour 
 he meant to shed the abomination. It had served its 
 purpose by letting him come by accident once or twice 
 within full sight of the Model, safe from recognition. He 
 had not wanted Mrs. May to find out prematurely that he
 
 128 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 was dogging her tire tracks in a car which might have 
 shot past her like a comet. She had misunderstood him 
 too often already, and he wished her to think him safe 
 at Lucky Star Ranch, until the moment when she would 
 rejoice to see him at any price. 
 
 More than once during the last four days of practice 
 and probation Nick had been tempted to offer his services. 
 But common-sense had held him back when the blue car 
 was in trouble. It had warned him that a little bitter 
 experience might incline the lady to be lenient. Several 
 minor breakdowns, disappointments, and vexations were 
 needed before she would see matters eye to eye with him. 
 And Nick thought himself lucky that, so far, the Model 
 had not been permanently disabled. Now, if anything 
 happened, he was ready. 
 
 Sealman had the air of slowing down, after an unusually 
 long nonstop run, to show off his acquaintance with the 
 country. "That great sandy stretch is the bed of the 
 Santa Ana," said he. "Why, there's so much sand and 
 so little water mostly, they have to sprinkle the bed to 
 keep it from flyin' about the landscape, as if 'twas a pile 
 o' feathers. It ain't like the Oro, where first they found 
 gold, and then, when they thought they'd got the lot, 
 come across more in the cobbles. Not only that, but by 
 some scientific process or other you wouldn't understand 
 if I told you they washed the river-bed, so the sand and 
 stones riz. 'Stirrin' up the alluvial deposits' was what they 
 called it; till they could get hold of the cobbles again, to 
 crush 'em for road-makin'. Roads was needed bad them 
 days! And at last they hauled out the mud from the
 
 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 129 
 
 bottom to plaster over the desert that was here, so oranges 
 and olives and grapes could take to growin'. Sort of 
 wonderful, wasn't it?" 
 
 Angela could have told him a great deal more than he 
 had told her, about these "scientific processes," for her 
 father had been one of the men most interested in their 
 success. But she kept her knowledge to herself. 
 
 "Yes, it's wonderful," she replied. "But don't you 
 think we'd better be going on? We've a long way before 
 us, according to the map." 
 
 "Yes, we'll go right on," said Sealman. " I just thought 
 I'd stop her and point out the Santa Ana, for fear you'd 
 miss it." He was anxious to conceal the fact that it was 
 the Model who had "just thought," but, urging her to begin 
 again where she had left off, the little brute refused 
 to budge. 
 
 "Is anything wrong?" asked Angela, when Sealman 
 had worked in worried silence for several minutes. 
 
 "Can't see nothing," said he, increasing in codfishiness. 
 " She'll be all right in a minute. Give her time to breathe !" 
 
 Angela gave her time to breathe, but the minute passed, 
 and other minutes limped after. Sealman sweated and 
 grunted under the open lid of the bright bonnet. Angela 
 was sorry for him. But she was more sorry for herself, as 
 she counted the nearest rows of orange-trees for the twenty- 
 fifth time, following them with her eyes, as they ran up the 
 ankles and legs of the little yellow mountains. It was 
 luncheon-time, and she was hungry. She had been read- 
 ing about the Mission Inn at Riverside, and picturing her- 
 self there, in a cool, large dining-room. 
 
 "How far are we from a railway station?" she asked
 
 130 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 desperately, when her watch said that they had sat by 
 the Santa Ana's bedside for thirty-five minutes. 
 
 " Can't tell you that, ma'am," snapped Sealman. " But 
 it's too far to walk, unless you've got seven-league boots." 
 
 " What's the matter? Haven't you found out yet ? " 
 
 "Thought it might be the pump. But it doesn't seem 
 to be. I give it up!" And he wiped his forehead with 
 a handkerchief that left green streaks of oil. 
 
 "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 com- 
 fortably and nag him while he was down hi 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, passionately 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
 
 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 131 
 
 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 any- 
 where 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
 
 132 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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 be- 
 side 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."
 
 THE MAN AT THE WHEEL 133 
 
 "And you've been " 
 
 "Just practising with my new machine. I thought I 
 might as well keep around in your neighbourhood as any- 
 where." 
 
 " 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 with- 
 out being asked. If he had not thought it "wasn't play- 
 ing fair," he would have "made believe" like a small boy 
 building air-castles, pretending that it really was a wed- 
 ding 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, be- 
 hind her back." 
 
 Yet it was difficult not to dream. Angela was so de- 
 
 134
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 135 
 
 lighted 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 per- 
 fection through a long process of evolution, and genera- 
 tions 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 con- 
 sidered it promotion to punch cattle? 
 
 All this was as true to-day in Riverside as it had been
 
 136 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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 River- 
 side; 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 ! "
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 137 
 
 "Where will it be?" Nick asked, afraid of the answer. 
 
 "In California somewhere," she said. 
 
 "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 T" Nick answered mechanically. But he was 
 saying in his heart, "She's never been hi 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
 
 138 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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 in- 
 stance, 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 eigh-
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 139 
 
 teen 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 nobody else except your 
 chauffeur? " (Nick pronounced 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. Milliard. Because, of course, she could unforgive him 
 again at any minute, if it seemed really best.
 
 140 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 141 
 
 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 passed in the grand old days. Then we'd spin on 
 to Redlands, and see the park and the millionaires' 
 houses "
 
 142 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "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 watch- 
 ing 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, noble-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 analogy 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."
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 143 
 
 "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." 
 
 Angela traced the steel embroidery on a gray suede bag 
 which lay on the table. She had got it the other day to 
 serve as understudy for the gold bag which was "taboo" 
 for public use at present. She was glad that the forest 
 creature did not know, and never would know, that she 
 had secretly bought back his gold bag. If he found out, 
 it might be his turn to misunderstand. 
 
 "How were you hurt in an accident?" she asked, for 
 the sake of diverting the talk from angels. 
 
 "It was in a fire," said Nick. 
 
 "Oh! On your ranch." 
 
 " Xo. In San Francisco." 
 
 Her interest grew. "In the great fire?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Did you live in San Francisco then?" 
 
 "No. I just went there." 
 
 " I think I guess. You went on purpose to help? " 
 
 "I felt as if every man ought to do what he could. I 
 couldn't do much. Shall we go on making believe? " 
 
 "You don't like talking of your good deeds." 
 
 "Oh, good deeds! I don't like talking of myself when
 
 144 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 there are better things to talk of. I could make you out a 
 tour in the Yosemite, Mrs. May. You shouldn't travel by 
 the ordinary stages. I'd get you something special, for 
 the driving parts; and you should have the finest trail 
 pony in California. I'd give ten years off my life to show 
 you the Big Trees. There are some mighty fine ones in 
 other places, you know; the Santa Cruz forest is splendid. 
 But it's the Mariposa Big Trees, in the Yosemite, I mean. 
 We'd drive from Wawona early in the morning, one 
 day, and stay till the sunset. You can't think what 
 sunset's like among the giant Sequoias, with the red 
 light, like a rain of ruby stars, falling through the 
 branches. And those trees are God's own architecture. 
 I guess even you have never seen a cathedral to touch 
 it; because there can't be one. All day you should 
 stay in the forest. I'd find you places for lunch and 
 dinner, and the squirrels would come and help you 
 eat. " 
 
 "It does sound nice," said Angela, bewitched by the 
 picture. 
 
 "It would be the nicest thing that ever happened. 
 Only * nice ' ain't a big enough word. Cant it come true? 
 Think, with your cat and your Kate and your trail guide? 
 You called me a 'friend in need.' Can't I be your guide 
 in need? You'd have to get a guide for the Valley. Why 
 not me?" 
 
 "We've only known each other a few days." 
 
 "Any other guide would be a stranger. And I guess, 
 Mrs. May, if that's all, we know each other as well as a 
 good many, who call themselves friends, get to know one 
 another in years. Do you ever find out anything about
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 145 
 
 people that you didn't feel the first moment you set eyes 
 on them? " 
 
 "Well you did save my life!" she conceded. "I 
 can't get away from that." 
 
 "Do you mind not getting away from it? " 
 
 "No-o." 
 
 "Then will you take me for your shuwer and trial 
 guide to those places? I won't ask you any more, now. 
 You can send me packing afterward, if you don't think I 
 live up to the character Mr. Morehouse has given you of 
 me." 
 
 " Mr. Morehouse ! I haven't heard from him since my 
 first day in New York." 
 
 " I mean the other Mr. Morehouse, his brother your 
 banker. Henry wired to him from New York. And he 
 was writing you, to say, if you hadn't got anybody who 
 knew the ropes to see you through your excursions, you 
 couldn't do better than let Hilliard of Lucky Star be your 
 pilot kind of courier, you know. Both the Morehouses 
 vouch for me, though it's Henry who's my friend. All 
 strangers who come to have a look around California take 
 a Californian to show them the sights. If you haven't got 
 Mr. Morehouse's letter, it must be waiting for you. I 
 reckon it ought to have arrived last night or this morning. 
 And if you find he recommends me as a trustworthy man, 
 will you think the plan over, before you say no? " 
 
 " You take my breath away ! But ye-es. I'll think 
 it over. I suppose one really can do things in America 
 one wouldn't do anywhere else?" 
 
 "That's why there's so much emigration," replied 
 Nick, gravely.
 
 146 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "And I should be studying California through you, I 
 suppose ? I begin to see that you're a typical Calif ornian. ' ' 
 
 "No," Nick contradicted her. "You mustn't get hold 
 of that impression. It wouldn't be playing the game for 
 me to let you. The typical Californian's a very different 
 man: a grand chap, and I reckon more like the sort you're 
 used to." 
 
 Angela smiled. "Describe him." 
 
 "Well, I'm not much at description. You'll meet the 
 kind I mean when you get to San Francisco, if you don't 
 before. The two Morehouses are the right sort; and lots 
 of others. John Falconer's one of the best. Have you 
 ever heard of him? " 
 
 "Yes," said Angela. "I remember his name. My 
 friends of mine have spoken of him, though he was younger, 
 and made his fame later." 
 
 "I should like you to come across him," said Nick, full 
 of enthusiasm for the man he admired, and devoid of 
 small jealousy. "Falconer was one of the grandest 
 lawyers California ever had; and in a way he made 
 himself, though he came of the best blood we've got." 
 (Nick would not have dreamed of mentioning that his 
 own blood was as good. He, like most men of the West, 
 thought more of his horses' pedigree than his own, and he 
 would as readily have boasted of his handsome looks as 
 of his father's people the people who had disowned that 
 father, and sent him to starve. But now he was boasting 
 of and for California. That was legitimate.) "Falconer's 
 the wisest and most far-seeing politician we have," he 
 went on, "and deserves his luck the money's he's made 
 and the name he's won. He's high up on one of our
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 147 
 
 biggest railroads, too, since he gave up law because he'd 
 no time to follow it; and he's not much over forty now. 
 That's California, Mrs. May. That's typical, falconer's 
 as different from a rough fellow like me, as as I hope I'm 
 different from Sealman." 
 
 "You're a loyal friend," Angela said, admiring the fire 
 in his eyes and the glow on his face as she would have 
 admired an impressionist sketch for a portrait by Sargent. 
 "Only this man ought to be a fresco," she told herself 
 as she followed out the picture-simile. "He's too big and 
 spirited and unconventional to be put into a frame." 
 
 "Oh, I'm not a personal friend of Falconer's," Nick 
 hastened to explain. "Wish I were! I've met him when 
 he's been to the Gaylor ranch the ranch I want you to 
 visit. But I expect he'd hardly remember me. And now 
 you see that I'm not typical, maybe you'll think there's no 
 place for me on your map. But I have my uses. I'm 
 warranted sure and sound. And wouldn't I just be ready 
 to die tryin', if you'd let me, to give you the time of your 
 life in California?" 
 
 "I've always heard that Calif ornian men are chivalrous 
 and kind." 
 
 "Oh, kind! That's a funny word." 
 
 "And these plans you" draw for me are are the sort of 
 thing to make a woman feel glad there are men in the 
 world willing to take so much trouble " 
 
 "They're the sort of thing to make a man glad there are 
 women or better still, a woman to work for," he 
 amended, so good to look at in his enthusiasm, that An- 
 gela's eyes would not be banished to the suede bag or 
 to the flowers on the table Nick's flowers.
 
 148 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "But," she went on, "but- 
 
 " Don't say that word to-day," Nick begged. "What- 
 ever you decide afterward, let me take you up to Rubidoux 
 and on to Redlands? Make up your mind about the rest 
 when you've seen Mr. Morehouse's letter." 
 
 "Very well," she said. "Just for to-day, the 'make- 
 believe' shall come true." 
 
 Nick turned away his face lest it should betray him. 
 
 "Thank you," he said quietly. "Well, then, I reckon 
 it's time I went to round up Billy. And we'll hit the 
 breeze for Rubidoux and Redlands." 
 
 They saw the park and the millionaires' houses and the 
 orange-packing, passing on the way picturesque little 
 towns, with Indian and Mexican names, which charmed 
 the eyes and ears of Angela. And always the air was 
 sweet with scent of orange-blossoms, roses, and alfalfa, 
 the life of the country. Once, at Redlands, Nick excused 
 himself and jumped out of the car at a shop. He was 
 gone three or four minutes; but when he came back he 
 said nothing of any purchase. - 
 
 It was only when he was bidding Mrs. May good night 
 at her hotel door that, with a schoolboy air, he pulled a 
 small package out of his pocket. 
 
 "Talking of typical Californian things," he said, trying 
 to seem careless, "here's one. I thought, as it's only a 
 little bouquet in a bottle a few flowers distilled you 
 might accept it. But if you want to give it back, I'll take 
 it like a lamb. It's because you love California I 
 want you to have it. Don't open the paper till you get 
 indoors. And you'll send me word whether you can go 
 along farther in the country of make-believe? "
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 149 
 
 "Of course. I '11 telephone." 
 
 "Early enough for us to start, if if the answer's yes? " 
 
 "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 
 quantities 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 Hillard'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.
 
 150 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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 Calif ornians 
 is proud of our State, and likes nothing better than bring- 
 ing 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 enter- 
 taining * 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 glass 
 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 dow r n 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."
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 151 
 
 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 / 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 
 nobody 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!
 
 152 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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 "assistant." 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 shore 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
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 153 
 
 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 emer- 
 gencies, 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
 
 154 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 155 
 
 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
 
 156 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 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 
 invitecl," 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 some- 
 how; 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
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 157 
 
 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 some- 
 what 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 pass 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. 
 
 Mrs. Harland, his sister, who as Nick was aware 
 kept house and entertained for Falconer, was as like him as 
 a very feminine woman can be like an extremely masculine 
 man; and, in fact, they were twins. Ralph Harland, an 
 Englishman, who had owned a California ranch, was dead; 
 and when his widow was not in Europe she stayed with 
 her brother. 
 
 They all talked together for a few minutes, or Theo 
 Dene talked and let the others speak occasionally. Then 
 Nick said that he must take his car to the garage, but 
 would come back for luncheon; and when he had flashed 
 away, Miss Dene invited herself to Mrs. May's room. 
 "Do let me go with you," she pleaded, with a girlish air 
 which she liked to put on with married women younger
 
 158 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 than herself. She thought that amusing. It impressed 
 upon them the fact that she was a girl free, with life 
 before her. And, indeed, "The Free Lance" was a nick- 
 name of hers, which she liked rather than disliked. 
 
 Of course, Angela said, "Do come." She had found out 
 that she was tired of Miss Dene. Still, she was curious to 
 hear what she would say. 
 
 Kate had already opened her mistress's luggage, and 
 spread gold and crystal toilet things about. There were 
 flowers, too, on the sitting-room tables and mantel, Cali- 
 fornia poppies with flaming orange hearts. Nick had 
 telegraphed for these; but Angela supposed that they had 
 been ordered by the "management." This impression 
 was unlikely to be contradicted, because Nick had wanted 
 her to have the flowers, not to get the credit for giving 
 them. But Theodora Dene, who was experienced and 
 shrewd in matters of the heart, wondered about the poppies. 
 She made no mention of them, however, to Angela. 
 
 "I wanted you to myself for a minute," she explained, 
 "to tell you I won't forget you are Mrs. May toujours 
 Mrs. May. And you needn't tell me anything, unless 
 you like." 
 
 "I have told you why I came to California," said 
 Angela. "I came to see it." 
 
 "And I do think you're seeing it in the nicest way!" 
 Miss Dene commented, sweetly. "I came for something 
 quite different. I don't one bit mind confessing." 
 
 "To write a book about California?" 
 
 "That was what I said to reporters. And that I was 
 going to visit Mrs. Harland. She's quite a dear, and I 
 made her ask me, last time she was in England, because
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 159 
 
 that was the first time I met her brother. I really came 
 over with the idea of marrying him. He's splendid, and 
 has loads of money which I badly need, for I've spent 
 every penny I've made from my books, and I've only eight 
 hundred a year of my own. That won't buy my frocks! 
 I took the greatest fancy to him. But I see now it's no 
 use. Rather a bore ! One hates to fail and I'm not used 
 to failure. However, there's a great romance which is 
 one consolation. I'm thinking whether or not I shall 
 use it for the book. I'd like to only Mr. Falconer's so 
 well known. Perhaps I shall pick up another plot. Any- 
 how, I'm recovering from the blow, and beginning to take 
 notice as they say of babies and widows. That brown 
 man of yours is a dream of beauty. Do you mind if I 
 smoke?" 
 
 "No. And he isn't mine," said Angela, taking off her 
 motor-veil in front of the mirror. 
 
 "Well, then, dear Princess, if he isn't yours, and you 
 don 't want him to play with, do hand him over to me. I 
 won't grab him, if you want him yourself. You were too 
 nice to me in Rome." 
 
 "You saw in Rome that I didn't play." Angela stabbed 
 a hatpin viciously into her hat. 
 
 "There were cats there. Here there aren't at least 
 not any who know the mouse." 
 
 Angela daintily ceased to be a fellow-being, in a dis- 
 concerting way she had when she chose, and became a 
 high personage. She did this without a word, without a 
 gesture, without even lifting her eyebrows. There was 
 merely a change of atmosphere. Miss Dene felt it, but 
 she did not care here as she would have cared in Rome.
 
 160 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 There, the young Princess di Sereno could have made or 
 marred her socially. In California she was on the same 
 ground as Mrs. May. Besides, she knew a thing about 
 Mrs. May which, for some reason or other, Mrs. May did 
 not want other people to know. So Theo sat on a green 
 sofa and smoked a cigarette, hoping that she looked 
 like a snake charmer with the sinuous, serpentine smoke- 
 loops weaving and writhing round her head. 
 
 "Pray don't joke in that way before any one else," said 
 Angela. "It is rather horrid, don't you think? No 
 doubt Mr. Hilliard will be delighted to have you ' play ' 
 with him, if you see enough of each other to make it worth 
 while wasting your energy." 
 
 As she spoke, she wrestled with a violent desire to show 
 Miss Dene that Nick was not to be detached from his 
 present position of guide, philosopher, and friend. 
 
 "I don't do that sort of thing with 'energy.' I do it 
 with magnetism," Theo drawled. Her cigarette was 
 smoked out, and she got up. " Well, I must run down to 
 Mrs. Harland, I suppose. We arrived only this morning, 
 early, from Monterey, and to-morrow we're going on to 
 Paso Robles. That's where Mr. Falconer's romance 
 comes in. Did you ever hear of Paso Robles?" 
 
 "Yes," said Angela. "My father owned land there, 
 with a warm sulphur lake. There's a legend about it, 
 which he used to tell me. The place is sold now. But 
 I'm going to see it because of the legend. I had photo- 
 graphs of the old Mission and of the lake, too." 
 
 "Well, perhaps you know, then, there's a big hotel 
 at Paso Robles and a 'cure.' I never heard of it before 
 but apparently it's famous. If you stop there try and
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 161 
 
 find out about a Mademoiselle Dobieski, and see her if 
 you can." 
 
 "Who is she?" Angela asked. "The name sounds 
 dimly familiar, as if she were an actress or a dancer, or 
 somebody one has heard of." 
 
 "She was a singer. She is Mr. Falconer's romance. 
 I'd give a good deal to see her." 
 
 "I suppose you will, if she's a friend of his, and you're 
 going to Paso Robles in his private car." 
 
 "No. I won't be allowed. He's sending Mrs. Harland 
 and me straight on to Del Monte, and then to San Fran- 
 cisco. He'll follow; and afterward he's going to take us 
 to Shasta, and the McCloud River, where they say he has 
 the most fascinating country house in the world. I shall 
 probably have a relapse when I see it." 
 
 "I remember now," said Angela. "There was a Polish 
 girl who sang in concerts, and then made her dbut in 
 opera in London. I never saw or heard her, but people 
 used to say she was divine. Then she went back to Russia, 
 three or four years ago* and seemed to vanish into space." 
 
 " She vanished into Siberia," replied Miss Dene. " Mean- 
 while, Mr. Falconer had had time to fall in love with her in 
 London, just before she took her Russian engagement. 
 It was his sister who told me this perhaps to prove that 
 there was no use my having Designs, with a capital D. 
 He followed the girl to St. Petersburg; she disappeared. 
 He put the matter into the hands of a detective an 
 American one, brought over on purpose money no object. 
 Then Mr. Falconer couldn't stay any longer himself, on 
 account of important interests on this side but I be- 
 lieve he flashed across once in a while, during the last four
 
 162 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 years, when lie was supposed to be resting and seeing 
 Europe with his sister. She was always in the secret. Well 
 at last they wormed out the truth: that the Dobieski'd 
 been arrested as a Nihilist, secretly, and, in spite of her 
 popularity on the stage as a singer, sent to Siberia. With 
 money, or influence, or both, she was rescued from some 
 dreadful hole, and smuggled to England. But she'd had 
 rheumatic fever, and her beauty was gone she was a 
 cripple. Still the extraordinary man was faithful though 
 he'd never even had a chance to try and make her 
 like him. Did you ever hear of such a lover, out of a 
 book?" 
 
 "No," said Angela, interested. But something within 
 her whispered, "There might be another such lover." 
 
 "Specialists Mr. Falconer and his sister had the 
 best said there was practically no hope that the girl 
 would ever be herself again. Yet the man wouldn't give up. 
 He thought there was no place in the world like Paso 
 Robles for performing miracles. The doctors laughed - 
 because it was natural he should believe in his own country. 
 However, the Dobieski consented to come. Mrs. Harland 
 brought her over. Now she's been here two months, and 
 is actually almost cured. Do try to get a glimpse of her. 
 I've an evil idea that my noble host is going to drop off at 
 the Springs, after shedding us encumbrances, for the sole 
 purpose of proposing. If I use this for my plot, I shall 
 give myself the satisfaction of making the story end badly." 
 
 "I dare say you'll enjoy doing that," Angela remarked, 
 in her gentlest voice. 
 
 "I really must go!" exclaimed Theo, and threw her 
 cigarette end into Angela's golden poppies. But she did
 
 COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE 163 
 
 not tell when she went downstairs, as Angela was half 
 afraid she would, that Mrs. May was the Princess di 
 Sereno. 
 
 Her friends had not left the veranda. Mrs. Harland 
 was talking to some people she knew, Falconer walking up 
 and down looking at the ships that were still trying their 
 speed, in sight of the hotel. 
 
 "I do wonder if the darling Angela knows about the 
 Prince?" Theo asked herself; and then joined Falconer 
 in his walk, not mentioning Mrs. May. 
 
 "So you've met that handsome big boy before?" she 
 began. 
 
 "Billiard?" said Falconer. "Oh, yes, I've met him 
 at Mrs. Gaylor's." 
 
 " Who's Mrs. Gaylor? " Theo had the curiosity to ask. 
 
 Falconer told her, and described Mrs. Gaylor as being 
 a beautiful as well as immensely rich young woman. 
 
 "It must be over a year since her husband died," he 
 added. " 'Old Grizzly Gaylor' he was called; a brute, 
 I'm afraid. His taking off must have been a relief to her. 
 She's left with a splendid property. I've heard it said 
 there may be a match between her and Hilliard. He 
 used to be foreman of her husband's ranch; but now 
 he's a landowner on his own account; struck oil, and made 
 a pile of money selling a gusher the biggest and longest- 
 lived we've had yet." 
 
 "Are they engaged? " inquired Theo. 
 
 "I don't know. It isn't announced, anyhow. But it 
 wouldn't be a bad match, even for a rich woman. Hil- 
 liard's a fine fellow, all the finer because he's a self-made 
 man. By the way, the Gaylor place is one of the show
 
 164 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 ranches of California. I think we ought to take you to see 
 it." 
 
 "Do!" cried Miss Dene. "I could write about it, 
 couldn't I? I'd like to see Mrs. Gay lor. Another Cali- 
 fornia type for my book!" 
 
 And again she asked herself, "I wonder if dear Angela 
 knows about the Prince? "
 
 XIII 
 FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT 
 
 SOMEHOW, Miss Dene got herself invited to spend 
 the afternoon in seeing with Mrs. May and Hilliard 
 all the things which Falconer and his sister had spent the 
 whole morning in showing her. Exactly how she did this 
 she herself might have told with her occasional startling 
 frankness if she had chosen. But Mrs. May could not. 
 Perhaps Angela had invited her, or said something which 
 could be snapped up as an invitation; for Nick would 
 hardly have suggested a, second guest unless his first 
 guest expressly wished for one. In any case, the fact 
 remained that Theo Dene was going in the yellow car for 
 a spin round Santa Barbara, to the Country Club, the 
 Hope Ranch, and above all, to the Mission. 
 
 She stood talking on the veranda to Falconer and Mrs. 
 Harland, as she waited for Angela to come down, and for 
 Hilliard to bring round the car. Her host and hostess were 
 laughing at her change of plans, for she had announced, 
 early in the day, that she meant to "lie down all the 
 afternoon and rest her features." 
 
 "Who is the beautiful Mrs. May?" asked Falconer. 
 
 Theo did not like this way of putting the question, 
 because, quite sincerely, she herself admired no woman 
 who was not of her own type. She was tempted to take 
 
 165
 
 166 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 advantage of Angela's desire not to be known, and say: 
 "Oh, she's one of a thousand other pretty travelling 
 women with intermittent husbands . ' ' This would have been 
 epigrammatic, and at the same time it might have quenched 
 dawning interest in the stranger. Neither the brother 
 nor sister was of the sort who favoured flitting ladies with 
 vague male belongings kept in the background. But 
 suddenly a brilliant idea occurred to Miss Dene, who 
 loved dramatic effects. 
 
 "Mrs. May chooses to be an ordinary tourist," Theo 
 said, with just the right air of mystery, " but if she liked, 
 she could travel as a personage. She has her own reasons 
 for coming to America, just as I have mine, though hers 
 are different. Don't you think she ought to see Shasta, 
 and the McCloud River, if her impressions are to be com- 
 plete?" 
 
 "Would she care to go?" said Mrs. Harland. "John 
 and I would be delighted to take her, and put her up for 
 a week-end wouldn't we, John? " 
 
 "Of course," said Falconer. "From what I saw of her, 
 she'd be a charming guest. But poor Hilliard 
 
 "Oh, do ask him, too, and give me a chance to flirt 
 with him, please. I've had such poor success with you, 
 I'm feeling crushed. Do you think Mrs. Gaylor too for- 
 midable for me?" 
 
 "If I were a betting man, I'd bet on you," Falconer 
 laughed. "But I don't know how far matters have gone 
 between Mrs. Gaylor and Hilliard. It may be gossip; 
 all the world loves a lover, you know; and it's human 
 nature to weave a romance around two interesting figures 
 placed toward each other as these are."
 
 THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT 167 
 
 "Well, I should like to try my hand, if his isn't pre- 
 engaged," said Miss Dene; "and if it is, he won't be wasted 
 on me, for I can always use him up in a book. What fun 
 to have Mrs. Gaylor at the same time! We should soon 
 see if they were engaged if we brought them together, 
 shouldn't we? If not, I'd be free to get in as much deadly 
 work as possible." 
 
 "Is Mrs. May's husband living?" asked Falconer, with 
 a twinkle of mischief in his usually grave eyes. 
 
 "I think I mustn't tell even you anything about her 
 private affairs," Miss Dene answered virtuously. "But 
 I've reason to know that, for this race, anyhow, she's out 
 of the running. As Mrs. May was telling you at luncheon, 
 Mr. Hilliard is showing her a few things because the 
 mutual friend who was to have done it, couldn't. He can't 
 show her Shasta and McCloud, though, as you can; for 
 a mere motor's no attraction compared to a private car. 
 I'm sure she's never been in one as gorgeous as the kind 
 in America yours in particular." 
 
 "Well, we must give her the chance to try it," said 
 Falconer. 
 
 "And you will think of inviting Mrs. Gaylor at the same 
 time? " Theo turned her eyes from her host to his sister, 
 beseechingly. 
 
 "I don't know Mrs. Gaylor well," Mrs. Harland de- 
 murred. "But if John wants you to see her ranch, 
 and takes us there, I don't mind asking her to Rush- 
 ing River Camp for a day or two. It's not very likely 
 that she'd refuse" the lady smiled "as I'm afraid 
 that socially she's more or less neglected, in spite of her 
 beauty."
 
 168 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Or because of it," said Falconer. "And here comes 
 Mrs. May." 
 
 A moment later the car came too, and Angela realized 
 that already she had reached the stage when she would 
 miss taking her place beside Hilliard. She sat behind with 
 Miss Dene, and Billy the "assistant" climbed into the 
 seat next the chauffeur's. 
 
 Theo availed herself of the opportunity to tell what she 
 had heard about Nick and Mrs. Gay lor, with embroideries 
 of her own. 
 
 The air was balm of a thousand flowers, but for Angela 
 it was no longer "Parfait d' Amour." The two battleships 
 had long ago finished their speed trial; and trails of 
 floating kelp lay like golden sea-serpents asleep under the 
 blue ripple of the sea. Everything was very beautiful. 
 But it was not yesterday ! 
 
 In the town with the Mission still distant, she began to 
 feel the "foreignness" of Santa Barbara. The streets 
 had Spanish names, and the trees seemed musical, as she 
 had thought that trees seemed in the South of Europe; 
 as if they had heard and seen all the happiness of history, 
 and had set them to music with their branches. Pretty 
 girls rode bareheaded, with sunburned men in sombreros, 
 just outside the straggling town, between hedges of roses 
 that made boundaries for bungalows. 
 
 The beauty of the world sang a song in Angela's ears, 
 with the rushing breeze the motor made; the wind in the 
 trees, the flashing lights and shadows on the mountains. 
 Clear-cut, lovely peaks sprang toward a sky that was 
 like fire opal with turquoies glowing blue behind it. 
 Still, this was not yesterday! The song of the world's
 
 THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT 169 
 
 beauty did not seem meant personally for her, as it had 
 then. 
 
 Piles of grain in the fields were like plumed, golden 
 helmets, laid down in rows to await the heads of resting 
 warriors. The California oaks, different from all other 
 oaks, were classic in shape as Greek temples sacred to 
 forest deities, standing against a background of indigo 
 sea. But Miss Dene would talk. 
 
 Theodora, in her books, made a speciality of describing 
 the emotional souls of women, her favourite female ther- 
 mometers being usually at freezing or boiling point never 
 temperate. Descriptions of scenery she "couldn't do," 
 and what she called "landscape gazing" bored her. She 
 was more interested in people, and big towns, than in wide 
 spaces where Nature tried to lecture her. But because 
 Angela admired the country she admired it, too, more 
 audibly than Angela. 
 
 They saved the Mission for the last. Nick had set his 
 heart on showing it to Mrs. May at sunset. As for Theo, 
 though she said so much, he knew by instinct that it was 
 not she who cared for the beauty of the magnolia hedges, 
 the hay-gilded meadows, and the dark oaks that blotted 
 the gold. He felt that he ought to admire Miss Dene, 
 for she was handsome, and put herself out to be kind to 
 him; but he wished the girl away, and was glad that 
 to-morrow she would be travelling with her own friends. 
 When she looked at him with her greenish eyes, she had 
 the air of judging his points, as if he were a portrait she 
 thought of adding to her collection, and of wishing him to 
 look at her. Nick was not to be fascinated in this way. 
 
 Along the Cliff Drive they went to the Hope Ranch, and
 
 170 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Angela tried to think of the brave old days of the "Roaring 
 Forties," of barbecues, and wedding feasts for Spanish 
 brides days when the business of life was to love, and 
 laugh, and dance, and spend the money yielded by thou- 
 sands of rolling acres. According to the stories, all women 
 had been beautiful, all men brave, and ready to fight for 
 the ladies they loved; and though the world had changed 
 since then, faster here than elsewhere, it seemed to her 
 that at heart the men of America had kept to old tradi- 
 tions more closely than men in older countries. Then 
 she smiled at herself for this impression; for, after all, 
 what did she know of American men? 
 
 When they turned at last, coming back toward the 
 Mission, to which, somehow, all the rest had been leading 
 up, the setting sun was beating the dusk into sparks of 
 fire. 
 
 At first glimpse, alighting before the steps of the restored 
 Mission church, Angela compared it unfavourably in her 
 mind with the lovely shabbiness of San Gabriel. She had 
 a feeling that Santa Barbara the pleasure-place lived on 
 Santa Barbara the Mission, with its history and romance. 
 But she had only to go inside to beg pardon of the church 
 for her first impression. It was easy to remember that 
 there had never been the same stress of poverty here as 
 among the missionary Fathers of San Gabriel, in the City 
 of Angela. Yet in this place, too, there was the same 
 pathetic effect which had brought tears to Angela's eyes 
 in the dim little church at San Gabriel; an effect that 
 once felt and understood, gives the old Spanish Missions 
 their great, undying charm. At Santa Barbara sweet 
 name, ringing like the silver bells of the Franciscan Fathers
 
 "8anta Barbara Mission, with its history and romance "
 
 THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT 171 
 
 as at San Gabriel, there had been the same striving to 
 copy the noble designs and proportions of the Spanish 
 cathedrals, visioned in spirit by the homesick monks, who 
 knew well they would never see them with bodily eyes 
 again. With simple materials and unskilled Indian work- 
 ers, these exiled men had striven to reproduce in the far, 
 lonely West the architecture of the East, loved and lost by 
 them forever. The very simplicity of the church made its 
 beauty. 
 
 The scar of Santa Barbara Mission had been patched 
 up, while at San Gabriel the bandages were vines and 
 flowers; but the sunset light lent to the cloisters all the 
 stateliness and glory of some old monastery in Southern 
 Spain; the octagonal fountain on the bare terrace dripped 
 silver; and an embroidery of lichen had gilded the rose- 
 coloured tiles of the sloping roof with all shades and tints 
 of gold. The sun, bidding good-bye to the day, gave back 
 for an hour the splendour of the past. 
 
 The three went up into the bell tower and looked down 
 upon the old garden of the monks, then away to the 
 sheltering hills, with the far-off rampart of mountains. 
 It was beautiful there, and the bells in their open, window- 
 like arches, had the kindly beauty of age and experience. 
 Angela tapped them with pink finger-nails, and brought 
 out a faint, musical whisper, which seemed to breathe 
 some secret, if only she could understand. But she could 
 not! She felt dull and unhappy, she could not tell why. 
 Certainly it could not be for such a stupid, dog-in-the- 
 manger reason as because Nick Hilliard was supposed to 
 be engaged to his "boss's widow" a most suitable 
 arrangement. Perhaps it was the dreamy sadness of this.
 
 172 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 place which had taken hold of her. If there were a secret 
 in the musical whisper of the bells, it was a secret of the 
 past; and it was time to come which was clouded for 
 Angela. There seemed to be nothing definite in it for her 
 to touch. Her bodily eyes looked out over the bay of 
 Santa Barbara, grape-purple with the wine of sunset; but 
 her spirit saw only the uncharted sea of the future, across 
 which strange sunrises glimmered, and winds cried like 
 harps, or voices called to her in prophecies she could not 
 hear. Happiness which she had never known seemed to 
 live beyond that sea in an island palace; but the key of 
 the palace lay fathoms deep, fallen among rocks under deep 
 water. When Angela had been on her way to California, 
 she had said to herself: "I shall be happy there living 
 alone in some place which I shall find, because I shall be 
 at peace, and disagreeable things can never come to me." 
 But now, suddenly, she felt that more than peace was 
 needed. She wanted to be happy with a happiness far 
 removed from peace. 
 
 "I think I'll go to the North to live," she decided. 
 " In all this sunshine and colour, one needs love or else 
 one's out of the picture." 
 
 At a little distance Miss Dene was telling Nick Hilliard 
 that she was glad she had met him, because he was just 
 what she wanted for her book about California. 
 
 "I'm going to see your ranch," she said, "and Mrs. 
 Gaylor's ranch. I've heard about it and her. She's 
 very handsome, isn't she? " 
 
 "Yes," said Nick. 
 
 "And a great friend of yours your best friend? " 
 
 "A great friend," he echoed, wishing that Angela,
 
 holding herself remote, would let him draw her into the 
 conversation. 
 
 It occurred to Miss Dene, seeing Nick's eyes wander, 
 that perhaps there was something about her which Cali- 
 fornia men were not trained to appreciate, for she was 
 not having her usual success. And she had scarcely made 
 the sensation she had expected to make in San Francisco, 
 although she had been interviewed, and one reporter had 
 said that her hair was dyed. Nevertheless, if she could 
 not have the sort of fun she wanted, she would at least 
 have what fun she could. She was sure that with Mrs. 
 Gaylor, and the Princess di Sereno, and this big unso- 
 phisticated young man, between them life would be inter- 
 esting even for an onlooker. 
 
 "I can see Chapter First, anyhow," she laughed to her- 
 self. And again she wondered if Angela " knew about the 
 Prince." 
 
 That night, while everybody drank coffee and talked 
 or played bridge in the hall, it was suddenly flooded with 
 a tidal wave of women. They flowed into the hotel in a 
 compact stream of femininity; billows of stout elderly 
 ladies, and dancing ripples of slim young girls, with here 
 and there a side-eddy of thin, middle-aged spinsterhood. 
 Each female thing had a "grip," and of these possessions 
 they built the desk a mountain of volcanic formation, 
 which looked alarmingly subject to eruptions and up- 
 heavals. Then they all began to talk at once, to each 
 other and to such hotel officials as they could overwhelm 
 and swamp. 
 
 "Good gracious! what is it?" asked Miss Dene of 
 Falconer, who was supposed to be a human encyclopaedia
 
 174 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 of general information. "I didn't suppose there were so 
 many women in the world ! " 
 
 "They're Native Daughters, out for an excursion and 
 the time of their lives," said Falconer. 
 
 "Why Native?" Angela ventured. "It sounds like 
 oysters." 
 
 "And it means California. They were all born in this 
 State; and they will now proceed to see something of it 
 in each other's company. To-morrow morning they'll 
 Mo' the Mission of Santa Barbara. " 
 
 "They'll do for it, if they all try to get in at once," 
 laughed Miss Dene. "The place will be simply crawling 
 with Daughters. How lucky we've done our sightseeing 
 to-day!" 
 
 She did not take the trouble to moderate her voice; 
 and one of the new arrivals, who hovered alone on the 
 edge of the crowd, like a bubble of foam flung out by the 
 surging wave, stood near enough to overhear. She turned 
 and threw a glance at the group, in time to catch en route 
 to the back of her dress a look sent forth from the eyes of 
 Miss Dene. It was that look which has no family re- 
 semblance to any other look, yet is always the same in the 
 eyes of the best and the worst woman the look she gives 
 another woman's dress the style and fit of which fill 
 her with supreme disgust. 
 
 The victim did not take this well-known gaze with meek- 
 ness. She was a small person, thin as a lath, with no at- 
 tempt at complexion, and a way of doing her hair which 
 alone would have proved impeccable virtue in the face 
 of incriminating circumstantial evidence. She had neat 
 little features, and a neat little figure, though "pro-
 
 THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT 175 
 
 vincial " was written over her in conspicuous letters; and 
 the gray eyes which she fastened on Miss Dene looked 
 almost ill with gloomy intelligence. She did not attempt 
 to "down" the beautifully dressed young woman with 
 a retort, though her expression betrayed a temptation to 
 be fishwifish. It was evident, however, that she was a 
 little lady, though she wore a badly made frock, and her 
 hat sat like a hard, extraneous Bath bun on the top of her 
 neat head. Whether or no she were a Native Daughter, 
 native good breeding fought with and got the better of 
 fatigue, nervousness, and irritation. She merely gazed 
 fixedly for a long second at Miss Dene, as if to say, "I 
 know my dress is amateurish, and yours is perfectly 
 lovely, but I have a heart and would hate to hurt the feel- 
 ings of anybody, especially one who couldn't pay me back, 
 whereas your only use for a heart is to keep your blood in 
 circulation." 
 
 Angela saw this silent play of weapons, and all her 
 sympathy was with the stranger in dusty blue alpaca. 
 She busied herself mentally in rearranging the little 
 woman's hair, dressing her in such a way as to make her 
 quite pretty and young-looking, and had not finished the 
 operation when a hotel clerk appeared with a paper in his 
 hand. 
 
 "Your name, please," he said to the small, unaccom- 
 panied person. 
 
 "My name is Sara Wilkins," she replied in a clear 
 precise voice, which matched her personality; "but I must 
 tell you that I am not a Native Daughter, and have not 
 engaged a room. I arrived at the same time with the 
 others, and when they are settled I hope you'll be able
 
 176 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 to find me something; otherwise I hardly know what I 
 shall do, as it's late, and I'm travelling alone." 
 
 "I'm afraid I can do nothing for you, Madam, if you 
 have not engaged, " said the young man, civilly. "These 
 ladies are expected, and a great many will be sleeping 
 three and four in a room. I'm sorry; but there are other 
 hotels in the town." 
 
 "I'm sorry too," said the lady in the dusty alpaca. 
 "I've wanted for years to stay in this hotel, if it was only 
 for a few hours, as I've read so much about it, and I 
 arranged to stop off at Santa Barbara on purpose, though 
 I really ought to have gone on. And I'm so tired ! " 
 
 Angela could bear no more. "Oh, would you take my 
 sitting-room?" she asked, with the smile she had in- 
 herited with her heart and a few other things from Franklin 
 Merriam. "It would be such a shame to go away when 
 you've wanted to stop here so late, too, and you 
 mightn't get in anywhere else. I shall be delighted 
 really and I'm sure they can make you up a comfort- 
 able bed, for there's a big lounge in the room." 
 
 Nick sat adoring her with his eyes, and Miss Dene 
 believed that Mrs. May had made the offer to please him 
 and Falconer. Men were very silly and sentimental about 
 such things. But as she, Theo, had no sitting-room of her 
 own they could not blame her for selfishness. 
 
 Miss Wilkins looked at Angela with her intelligent gray 
 eyes. "Why, that's very kind of you," she said. "I 
 don't like to take your room " 
 
 "But you must like it, or you'll spoil my pleasure," 
 Angela broke in, looking so charming in her wish to make 
 the little dusty person happy that few women and no men
 
 THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT 177 
 
 could have resisted, or helped believing in her. It was at 
 this moment that Falconer determined to tell Mrs. May 
 something about certain private interests of his at Paso 
 Robles, which he had not intended to mention. 
 
 "Well, I will take the room, then, and I will like it, 
 too," returned Miss Wilkins. "I don't know how to 
 thank you enough." 
 
 "I'm giving up nothing that I shall mind doing with- 
 out," said Angela; and did not dream that she had stirred 
 the deep water under which a golden key lay hid; the key 
 of that island palace in the uncharted sea of the future.
 
 XIV 
 THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL 
 
 "Do YOU think you will go to Shasta in Mr. Falconer's 
 private car? " Nick asked wistfully. 
 
 They were flying along together on the winds of the 
 Bright Angel, Angela by Nick's side, on the way to Paso 
 Robles. It was afternoon of the next day; Falconer 
 and Mrs. Harland and Theo Dene had left Santa Barbara 
 in the morning; and the sister and brother had been so 
 pressing in their invitation that Angela had hardly known 
 how to refuse, though not quite willing to accept. Late 
 that night, Mrs. Harland and Theo would arrive at Del 
 Monte, where Falconer would join them, and in a day or 
 two they would go on to San Francisco, where Miss Dene 
 had already been visiting. In Mrs. Harland's maid, Kate 
 had found a friend from her own part of "the ould 
 country," who had "come over" three years ago, and 
 who had known Tim. This meeting was such a joy, that 
 Angela had fallen in with Mrs. Harland's suggestion that 
 Kate should go on to Paso Robles in Mr. Falconer's car 
 McCloud. Tlie girl would thus enjoy her friend's 
 society for several hours, and having arranged Mrs. May's 
 things in the rooms]already engaged at the hotel, would 
 await her mistress's arrival that evening. Therefore, 
 Angela, Nick, and the little chauffeur had the Bright Angel 
 
 178
 
 THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL 179 
 
 to themselves for a run of a few hours through beautiful 
 country, and a visit to the old Mission of San Miguel before 
 arriving at Paso Robles. 
 
 "Do I think I shall go?" Angela echoed the question 
 lazily, for she was happier this morning, and basking 
 dreamily in the change, not troubling to wonder what had 
 brought it about. " I hardly know. They were very kind 
 to ask me. Californian people seem so warm-hearted to 
 strangers, and so hospitable, one can't help feeling one's 
 known them for years instead of days. You are like that 
 too otherwise I shouldn't be here ! And I've almost for- 
 gotten to be surprised at myself for anything. I like 
 Mr. Falconer; Mrs. Harland, too; but he is what you 
 said splendid. I understand why you called him typi- 
 cally Californian." 
 
 "I'm glad," said Nick. And he tried to be glad. But 
 he had not been told the romance of Mademoiselle Dobie- 
 ski. Falconer did not guess that Angela or Theo Dene 
 knew it, though he proposed introducing Mrs. May to a 
 "Polish lady, staying at Paso Robles." "Then, of course, 
 you will go to Shasta, and they'll take you to their place on 
 the McCloud River. They say Falconer's house is the 
 prettiest place of the sort in California. Mrs. Gaylor's 
 never been, but she reads a lot about society folk and their 
 doings in the papers. You'll sure have a good time." 
 
 "Why do you say 'you'? They invited you, too." 
 
 "Yes, and that was really kind," Nick said. "It isn't 
 'kindness' to ask you, because 'twould be an honour to 
 have your visit. But they don't want me. I was asked 
 only because I happened to be with you, and Mrs. Har- 
 land was afraid my feelings would be hurt if I was left out."
 
 180 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "I'm sure you're mistaken," Angela insisted, laughing 
 within herself because he had not seen Theo's manoeuvres. 
 "Of course they want you." She could not add what 
 was in her mind. "Anyway, Miss Dene does." As for 
 Carmen, Angela had no idea that the invitation was to be 
 extended to her, and the figure of Mrs. Gay lor, who, 
 according to Theo, intended to marry Hilliard, loomed less 
 important than after listening to Miss Dene's gossip. Of 
 course, it would be a good thing for him to care for Mrs. 
 Gaylor, and if she were really nice, to marry her in the end. 
 Only, when a young woman is in a motor-car with a hand- 
 some "forest creature" who appears to live only for her 
 pleasure, she does not think much beyond the hour. For 
 that hour he may be hers, and hers alone, though to- 
 morrow they part; and she shuts her eyes to anything so 
 far away, so out of the picture, as an "end." 
 
 "I'm not Mrs. Harland's kind," Nick explained; "nor 
 Falconer's, though he's too big a man to care for what 
 people call 'social distinctions.' They'd be kind to me if 
 I went, and wouldn't let me feel any difference they could 
 help. But there'd be a house-party, maybe, and I wouldn't 
 know any one. I'd be 'out of it.' I couldn't stand for 
 that, Mrs. May." 
 
 "You're sensitive," Angela said. 
 
 "In some ways," Nick admitted. But he did not admit 
 the truth; that he could not, and would not, go to Rushing 
 River Camp because he was jealous of Falconer. To 
 Nick it seemed impossible that any man, free to love, could 
 be five minutes in Angela's society without falling in love 
 with her. 
 
 He had had his moments of hope, but with Falconer
 
 THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL 181 
 
 for a rival the handicap was too great. Not that Nick 
 meant to give up the fight; but if she went to Shasta 
 it would be a knockdown blow. John Falconer was high 
 enough for a place in Mrs. May's own world. Nick 
 despised jealousy as common and shameful, and had 
 always scorned men who yielded to so mean a vice. Now, 
 however, they had his pity. He knew what they suffered, 
 and he could not go with Mrs. May, in Falconer's car. 
 
 Nevertheless he beat down the desire to dissuade her 
 from the trip. 
 
 "You oughtn't to miss McCloud River," he forced 
 himself to say. 
 
 "I'll see," said Angela. "It's nice not to make up one's 
 mind, but just to enjoy the minute." 
 
 "Are you enjoying the minute? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 He was rewarded. For this minute was his. They were 
 spinning along the coast road, between sea and meadow, 
 with the salt breeze in their faces. The red-gold earth 
 rose and fell in gracious curves, like the breasts of a sleep- 
 ing Indian girl, and now and then an azure inlet of the 
 sea lit up a meadow as eyes light a face. In the distance, 
 mountains seemed to float like spirit guardians of hill- 
 children; and desert dunes billowed through irrigated 
 garden oases, like rivers of gold boiling up from magic 
 mines. 
 
 Nick pointed out the two little mountains named after 
 Louis the Bishop, and told Angela tales of the country, of 
 the people, and of the little towns with Spanish names and 
 faces, which gave her always that haunting impression of 
 the Old World. Some of the stories were her father's
 
 182 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 stories, and she liked Hilliard the better for knowing 
 them. 
 
 They had both forgotten Miss Sara Wilkins, who had 
 "stopped off" at Santa Barbara because all her life she 
 had wanted to see the place. But just at that moment, 
 on her way to Bakersfield, she happened to be thinking of 
 them both. 
 
 At last the car plunged into a maze of folding hills, like 
 giant dunes. The motor road was woven in twisted strands 
 while the railway overhead strode across the gaps between 
 height and height, on a vast trestle that might have been 
 built for an army of Martians. Rock-crested hills rose 
 gray in the sun above the soft night of oak forests; and as 
 the road ascended, its ribbons were looped from mountain 
 to mountain like the thrown lasso of a cowboy. 
 
 "Paso Robles means 'Pass of the Oaks,' " said Nick, 
 as they came into a stretch of billowing country where im- 
 mense trees shadowed the summer gold of meadows. 
 
 "Shall we go first to the Mission of San Miguel?" Nick 
 asked. "Or are you tired, and shall I take you to the 
 hotel now?" 
 
 " I'm not tired," said Angela. She did not want this day 
 to end yet. 
 
 "We'll hit the trail for the Mission, then," said Nick, 
 "and see the sunset, as we did from Santa Barbara." 
 
 "Can this be as beautiful?" Angela asked. "Surely 
 not?" 
 
 "You, maybe, won't think so, but I know it will be 
 more beautiful for me," he answered. "That imported 
 young lady, with all those elegant fixings, sort of jarred 
 with the Mission architecture, to my mind."
 
 THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL 183 
 
 Angela hoped that her laugh was not cattish. " But I'm 
 imported, too," she said. "Shall I jar on you at San 
 Miguel?" 
 
 "You're not imported!" Nick dared to contradict her. 
 "Or, if you are, you're the kind there oughtn't to be any 
 duty on." 
 
 A rain of sunset colour poured over mountains, hills, 
 and meadows as Nick turned his car toward San Miguel. 
 When they came in sight of the old Mission (built far from 
 the Springs because of hostile Indians), the changing lights 
 were like an illuminated fountain. At last, when they 
 began to fade, Angela said, "Let us go. If we stay longer 
 we shan't remember this at its best." 
 
 She would have been surprised if she had known what 
 happiness there was for Nick in the word "we," spoken 
 as she often spoke it now: "We" must do this; "We" 
 mustn't forget that. 
 
 But it was a blow when she asked Billy, the chauffeur, 
 if he would like to see the Mission. "Nothing can hurt 
 the car," she said; "and when we come back it will be too 
 late." 
 
 Nick was tempted to glare a warning and suppress the 
 youth's interest in objects of historical value: but he 
 refrained. Billy must not get it into his head that there 
 was "anything going on." So the chauffeur was allowed 
 to follow Nick and Angela as they wandered, so it seemed 
 to him, sentimentally about the big Mission enclosure, 
 between crumbling adobe walls where the Franciscan 
 Fathers had sheltered cattle in nights of peace, and Indians 
 in nights of danger. Billy could not feel the pathos of the 
 place desolate, yet impressive in its simplicity; but as
 
 184 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 he sauntered about, his hands in his pockets, whistling 
 beneath his breath, "I can't marry you!" his smart little 
 modern mind began to work. The strategic value of the 
 position appealed to him, and he saw why "those old 
 Johnnies," as he irreverently styled the Padres, had 
 planted the Mission here. "Guess they knew their busi- 
 ness 'most as well as if they'd been soldiers," he said to 
 himself. 
 
 Billy found pleasure in picturing the massacres which 
 
 must have taken place, imagining the great doors of the 
 
 "enclosure opened hastily to let in an escaping band of 
 
 '"friendlies"; then the bursting in of the enemy, and the 
 
 death of the Fathers as they tried to protect their Indian 
 
 children. Many had died by fire and tomahawk, but 
 
 always others had come to take their place; and so the 
 
 work had gone on through time, even as the bell-signals 
 
 had gone on sounding from Mission to Mission along El 
 
 ^Camino Reale, the highway of the Padres. 
 
 "One Father lives here; a dear old gentleman," said 
 INick. "I met him once, but he mayn't remember me. 
 J'll knock at his door to ask for the key of the church. 
 ) Somehow I think you're going to like it better than the 
 church of Santa Barbara. There's something special 
 about this place, I hardly know what, but you'll know. 
 And they've got some vestments they're proud of made 
 by Queen Isabella the Catholic and her ladies." 
 
 It rather surprised Angela to hear Nick speak of "Is- 
 abella the Catholic," for this way of naming the Queen 
 showed knowledge of history; and Angela had not yet 
 discovered that history was Nick's favourite reading. 
 Indeed, she was only beginning to learn a few things about
 
 THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL 185 
 
 him. At first her whole rather patronizing idea of the 
 young man had been that he was an "interesting type," 
 a "picturesque figure." Then, when she heard him talk 
 with Falconer, and Falconer talk of him and of what he 
 had done, she saw that Hilliard was already a man of 
 importance in his State: that the "picturesque figure" 
 was merely the woman's point of view. She was ceasing 
 to patronize him mentally now, and almost every hour 
 he gave her some surprise. 
 
 At a closed door in the white, deserted cloisters, Hilliard 
 knocked, but there was no answer. His face clouded, for 
 he had set his heart on showing Mrs. May this Mission 
 church. 
 
 "This means we can't get the key," sighed Angela. 
 
 "I'm afraid so," he agreed. "But it's possible the 
 Padre's showing some one around, or having a look at his 
 beloved vestments." 
 
 They walked to the church door and found it shut; 
 but to their surprise the big old-fashioned key was in 
 the lock. Nick pushed the door open and they both 
 went in, followed by Billy. The Padre was not to be 
 seen. So far as they could tell in the dimness the church 
 was empty. 
 
 "Queer!" exclaimed Nick. "I wonder what can have 
 become of the Padre? It isn't like him to leave his church 
 open at this time of the evening. It's late, and we'll have 
 to light up before we start on, although we've only eight 
 miles to go." 
 
 " I'm sorry he's not here," Angela said. " I should have 
 loved to see Queen Isabella's vestments." 
 
 "Would you? Well, you shall, if I have to turn every-
 
 186 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 thing in the church upside down. They must be some- 
 where." 
 
 The two wandered on, peering through the dusk at the 
 primitive paintings and decorations, made by Indians 
 according to designs of Spanish monks. 
 
 "Do you suppose the vestments may be kept up in that 
 gallery?" Angela suggested. "It looks a safe sort of 
 place for treasures. But if they're there I'm afraid we 
 shall find them in a locked box." 
 
 It was worth trying, and they climbed the narrow stairs 
 that led up to a gallery curtained with twilight. There 
 sure enough was a box, and, like the door, it was open, the 
 key in the lock. Within, free to every hand, were the 
 embroideries, the great treasures of the church. 
 
 "Isn't it mysterious?" she asked, in a half-whisper, 
 for loud tones would make jarring notes in this haunt of 
 silence. "Can anything have happened to the Padre?" 
 
 "Things don't happen these days," Nick reassured her. 
 
 But he was not quite easy in his mind. " It's too dark for 
 you to see the vestments well. Shall I carry them down- 
 stairs?" 
 
 " No," said Angela. " I'd rather look at them here. It's 
 like staring at flowers hi the night. The colours come 
 up to your eyes in the most wonderful way." 
 
 Seeing that she meant to kneel by the open chest Nick 
 whipped off his coat to lay under her knees, and she 
 laughed as she named him Sir Walter Raleigh. Hilliard 
 and Billy stood behind her, Nick stooping sometimes to 
 examine a stole or altar-cloth she wished to show him, 
 Billy frankly bored, until a faint sound somewhere made 
 him prick up his ears.
 
 THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL 187 
 
 "Maybe that's the Padre now," said he. "Shall I go 
 and look?" Then he pattered down the steep stairway 
 without waiting to be answered. 
 
 Angela and Nick forgot him for a moment, until his 
 nasal young voice called excitedly from below the gallery: 
 
 "Say, Mr. Hilliard, we're locked in!" 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Nick, straightening himself up 
 and dropping the end of an embroidered stole. 
 
 "Some fellow's been to the door and locked it on the 
 outside."
 
 XV 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 
 
 IT WAS very dim in the Mission church. Angela had 
 not realized how dim until she heard the news announced 
 through Billy's nose. They were locked in! 
 
 Somebody had been to the door, somebody had locked 
 it on the outside, and it was deep twilight, almost night. 
 
 Suddenly it seemed completely night. The colours of 
 the old vestments still glowed in the dusk, like smoulder- 
 ing coals in a dying fire; but that was because of the 
 rich tints, and because the eyes gazing at them were accus- 
 tomed to darkness. Looking up at Nick to see what his 
 silence meant, and whether he were nonplussed or merely 
 deciding on a plan of action, Angela could hardly make 
 out his features. She could see clearly only his eyes, 
 .luminous and gray. 
 
 "What shall we do?" she asked. Her voice sounded 
 appealing, like that of a child. 
 
 "Don't worry, Mrs. May," said Nick, with sudden 
 cheerfulness. " We'll get out all right. I was just study- 
 ing what must have happened. That's why I was so mum. 
 I reckon the Padre must have been away though why 
 he left the key in the door beats me and coming back he 
 locked up for the night. Unless he went around in the 
 'direction of the auto he wouldn't have seen it. If he 
 
 188
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 
 
 looked in here, of course he'd have thought the church 
 empty, we being in the gallery. And it's late in the day 
 now, so late he wouldn't expect visitors." 
 
 "It's so 'late in the day' that it's night!" cried Angela. 
 "Another reason for his not seeing the motor." 
 
 "Not quite night yet! And I'm going down to make 
 all the noise I can at the door, assisted by Billy. There'll 
 be such a din, between the two of us, you'll want to stop 
 your ears, and as for the Padre, he'll come trotting as fast 
 as his legs will carry him, to stop the row." Nick laughed 
 so jovially that Angela began to be seriously concerned. 
 If it were necessary to assume such gaiety he must regard 
 the situation as desperate. She remembered how far 
 away was the sole occupied room among the many empty, 
 echoing cells. 
 
 Nick helped her down the steep stairway, and the 
 touch of his hand upon her arm was comforting. It was- 
 cold in the darkening church, and she felt the chill more 
 in imagination than in body; yet she shivered. 
 
 "\Yhat if we have to stay here all night?" she thought.. 
 But she kept the thought to herself. 
 
 Nick and Billy took turns in pounding on the door,, 
 shouting, "Hi, Padre!" then doing it together; but 
 the separate and combined noises, ear-splitting inside 
 the church, produced no result. The dreamy silence 
 was shattered in vain, and at last, when the two re- 
 fused to be discouraged by lack of success, Angela stopped 
 them. 
 
 "It's no use," she said. "He isn't going to hear. And 
 I shall have hysterics or something idiotic if you keep on 
 for one more minute."
 
 190 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "I was thinking of trying another way," said Nick, 
 still painfully cheerful. 
 
 "What other way? since even Samson couldn't bat- 
 ter down the door." 
 
 "A lot simpler than battering. Climb out of a window." 
 
 "Too high," said Angela. 
 
 "No. I can manage all right. I'll get out, find the 
 Padre, and " 
 
 "And leave me here in the dark? No ! " 
 
 "But there'll be Billy." 
 
 "Let Billy go," Angela half whispered, "and you stay 
 with me. Supposing you went, and the Padre wasn't 
 there, and and you weren't able to get back. Oh, I 
 couldn't bear that!" 
 
 Never had Nick known so exquisite a moment. He 
 was sorry this queer, mysterious accident had happened, 
 because it seemed to reflect somehow on his intelligence 
 and foresight as a guide. And he hated to have Angela 
 distressed. But - after his strivings with jealousy, and 
 his defeat it was balm that she should depend upon him, 
 and want him with her in this adventure. 
 
 "I thought, if worst came to worst, I might find a ladder 
 outside," he said, fearful of betraying his illicit happiness. 
 
 "Billy can find a ladder, if there is one," Angela per- 
 sisted. "There's the most weird, rustling sound, which 
 comes every once in a while, and I can't possibly stand it 
 with only Billy." 
 
 Nick could hardly speak for joy, but he managed to 
 reply, "All right; Billy shall be the man to go." 
 
 The going was easier to propose than to carry out: 
 for in bygone days, when the Padres of Old Spain were
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 191 
 
 building New Spain, Mission churches had to protect 
 their flocks against the devil incarnate as well as excarnate. 
 Windows were made few and high; and now, when the 
 brave builders sleep, it is nobody's business to worry about 
 the free passage of air. Such windows as San Miguel 
 possesses were hermetically closed that night when Angela 
 di Sereno and Nick Hilliard were imprisoned; and Billy, 
 standing on Nick's shoulders, had to work a few tedious 
 moments before he could induce one of these windows to 
 open. By the time the wiry, slim figure was ready to 
 straddle the window-sill, slip out, dangling, and drop on 
 the grass, night had closed in, fragrant and purple in the 
 open, heavy and black in the church. 
 
 Angela came and stood close to Nick. She had never 
 been a timid girl; but since the night when she had lain 
 watching a thief who slowly, slowly raised her window, 
 twelve storeys above the ground, foolish and hitherto un- 
 known terrors crept through her veins if she happened to 
 wake in the dark. And now there certainly was a rustling 
 which stirred the silence, then died, as if it had never been. 
 
 " Don't go away from me," she said. " It's so dark that 
 if we're separated we may be ages finding each other." 
 
 This sounded like an allegory ! 
 
 "No, we mustn't be separated," Nick answered, struck 
 by her words, as if by a prophecy. Then he, too, heard 
 the rustling faint, winged, and mysterious. 
 
 They stood still and close together, listening. There 
 was no sound from outside not a call for the Padre, not 
 a reassuring shout that Billy had succeeded in finding him. 
 
 Angela groped with her hand, and, by accident, touched 
 Nick's. To save his soul he could not have resisted press-
 
 192 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 ing the small cold fingers! Wonderful! She did not 
 snatch them away! Often they had shaken hands, or 
 Nick had taken hers to help her in or out of the motor-car; 
 but there had been nothing like this. He felt the thrill of 
 the touch go through him as though electric wires flashed 
 a message to his heart. He was afraid of himself afraid 
 he should kiss her hand, or stammer out "I love you!" 
 And that would be fatal, for she would never trust herself 
 to him again. Besides, it would not be fair. She was like 
 a child asking his protection, here in the dark, and he must 
 treat her as a man treats a child who has come to him 
 because it is afraid. But he could not think of her as a 
 child. He thought of the night in New York when she 
 had knocked on his door, and called to him, a stranger, for 
 help. He thought how he had seen her, drowned in the 
 waves of her hair, like the angel of his dreams. 
 
 "Do you hear that?" she whispered, letting him keep 
 her hand, even clasping his with her fingers. "There's 
 something alive in this church, something besides our- 
 selves." 
 
 Nick felt giddy. It was all he could do to keep himself 
 from catching her in his arms, no matter what might be the 
 consequences, no matter how she might hate him a moment 
 afterward. But he resisted, and the strain of temptation 
 passed. 
 
 "A bird has got in, perhaps," he said. 
 
 "You you don't think it could be the Padre himself 
 'ill, or or " 
 
 Nick understood her hesitation and fear. 
 
 "No," he soothed her. "We'd have seen any but some 
 small thing. I've got two or three matches in my box, I
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 193 
 
 guess. We'll have a look around." This was supreme self- 
 sacrifice on his part, for to find matches and "look around" 
 meant letting Angela's hand go. To let it go was tempting 
 Providence, since almost certainly she would never, of her 
 own accord, slip it into his again. 
 
 "Yes, do let us," she said, and drew the hand away. 
 Nick supposed she had hardly been conscious that he had 
 held her fingers in his, and even pressed them. But this 
 was not the fact. True, Angela had mechanically groped 
 for a protecting touch. Nevertheless, she was aware of 
 Nick's hand on hers, and glad of it, with a gladness made 
 up of several conflicting feelings: such as surprise, some 
 slight shame, and defiance of that shame. She was afraid 
 of the rustling in the dark, which might mean a lurking 
 thief, a man half murdered, or one of a dozen things each 
 more unpleasant than the other. Yet she half liked being 
 afraid in the dark, with Nick Hilliard to reassure her, 
 though she would have hated it with Billy. No unknown 
 horror she could conjure up would have made her want 
 to touch Billy. She was almost sorry when Nick found 
 his matches and together they began moving about the 
 church, she keeping a little behind. 
 
 The last match but one lit up something white that 
 stirred beside the altar; and as the flame died down, leav- 
 ing only a red glowing point, a pair of eyes like two points 
 of fire stared up from the floor. 
 
 "Oh!" murmured Angela, and clutched Nick's coat 
 sleeve, like a girl of early Victorian days. But, after all, 
 women have not changed in essentials. They are much 
 the same now in the dark, when pale things stir or shine 
 unexpectedly; and they are still glad to have with them
 
 194 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 at such times a man, preferably a handsome man, they 
 happen to like better than any other. 
 
 "Great Scot, it's an owl!" said Nick, profiting by the 
 last match of all. It was, or appeared to be, a white owl; 
 and it seemed to him for a second or two as ft the witch- 
 bird of the Grapevine man at Los Angeles had come to 
 give the advice it had refused. But this was a childish 
 idea, he knew ! The owl was a plain, ordinary owl, which 
 no doubt lived in the neighbourhood of San Miguel, and 
 had flopped in, perhaps in search of the proverbial church 
 mouse. It was afraid of the other intruders, and afraid 
 of the match, so afraid that it flapped its wings and hooted 
 dismally. It hooted three times, which, if it had been the 
 witch fortune-teller, might really have meant something, 
 though there was no time just then to think what. Nick 
 was somewhat alarmed lest, in its anger and fear, it should 
 dash at Angela's face, but she would not let him strike 
 the creature with his hat. 
 
 "No, poor thing, it's worse off than we are, because it's 
 alone, and we're together," she said. "We'll go, and 
 leave it in peace now we know what it is." And she kept 
 beside Nick in the dark by holding daintily to his coat 
 sleeve. 
 
 He found the steps of the gallery, and made her sit 
 down on the lower one, rolling up for a cushion his coat, 
 on which she had knelt as she looked at the vestments. 
 It began to seem odd that Billy had not come back, but 
 it was difficult for Nick to regret the delay as much as he 
 ought, for Angela's sake, to have regretted it. 
 
 When she shivered and confessed that she was cold, 
 Nick fetched her a priest's coat from the gallery, a rare
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 195 
 
 piece of brocade, embroidered perhaps by queen's fingers, 
 and smelling of incense. 
 
 "What can have happened to Billy?" Angela wondered. 
 "It's the strangest thing that he doesn't come back. I 
 begin to be frightened about him." 
 
 Nick reassured her once more. Things often seemed 
 queer that were simple when explained, as doubtless this 
 
 would be. "I suppose you'd not like me to go " he 
 
 began, only to be cut short before he could finish his 
 sentence. 
 
 "No if you mean, would I like you to go and look. 
 While you're here " 
 
 "Yes, Mrs. May?" 
 
 "Why, of course, nothing matters so much. And I 
 wish you wouldn't stand where I can't see you. Do sit 
 down on this step by me." 
 
 So Nick sat down on the step, and her shoulder touched 
 his arm. They talked in low voices, he telling her things 
 to "keep her mind off" the situation: things about the 
 Mission and other Missions. Then the conversation 
 turned to Nick's ranch and the oil gusher which had given 
 him fortune out of threatening ruin; and he described 
 the queer little oil city which had grown up on his land. 
 
 "I should like to see it," Angela said, when he had 
 pictured Lucky Star City and ranch in a simple way, 
 which was nevertheless curiously graphic. 
 
 He caught up her words eagerly. "Would you let me 
 take you there?" he begged. "Mrs. Gaylor'd invite you 
 to stay at her house. You know I've told you about that, 
 and how " 
 
 "Yes, I know." Angela could hardly have explained
 
 196 THE TORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 why, but somehow she did not want to hear Mrs. Gay lor 
 talked of just then. She was no longer indifferent to the 
 idea of seeing Nick's home, and the woman who had 
 helped him to make it, yet she was not sure that she 
 wished to go there. Certainly she did not wish to visit 
 Mrs. Gaylor. But she would like to know whether the 
 mistress of the Gaylor ranch was really so very beautiful. 
 
 " What we must think about now, is how to get out of 
 this church," she went on, laughing faintly in the dark. 
 "It seems as if we might have to stay here all the rest of 
 our lives." 
 
 "Are you hungry?" Nick inquired. 
 
 "A little." 
 
 In his enraged disgust at not being able to procure a 
 meal, Nick would gladly have killed and cooked the owl. 
 
 "Are you?" Angela asked. 
 
 "Ami what?" 
 
 "Hungry." 
 
 " Good heavens, no ! " 
 
 Tune passed vaguely, as time does pass in the dark, 
 when there are no means of counting the minutes. They 
 could hear their watches ticking, if they listened, but they 
 never listened long enough to know how the seconds went 
 by. And all the matches were gone. 
 
 "It's like being lost in a cave, or a mine, or the cata- 
 combs," Angela reflected aloud, " with your only candle 
 burnt out. You can't tell whether it's minutes or hours." 
 
 "It must be mighty tedious for you, I'm afraid; though 
 Billy's sure to come back soon," said Nick. 
 
 "No, somehow it isn't tedious," she answered as if 
 puzzled. " I suppose I'm rather excited. And you '
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 197 
 
 "Well, I suppose I'm rather excited, too," said Nick, in 
 his low, quiet voice, that did not betray what he felt. 
 Angela's voice told more of what went on in her soul. It 
 was, as Nick often thought, a voice of lights and shadows. 
 
 At last what time it might be they could not tell 
 there came a sound of a key turning in a lock. The door 
 opened, and a yellow ray from a lantern streamed into 
 the church, making the owl in its corner flutter wildly. 
 Billy's face showed in a frame of dull gold, as he peered 
 about, blinking. 
 
 Then, for the first time, Angela knew that Nick had 
 been angry with the chauffeur. There was something in 
 his tone as he said, "Well! So you have come!" which 
 suggested that, if she had not been there, the "forest 
 creature" might have added some strong and primitive 
 language. 
 
 "Couldn't help it, Mr. Hilliard. I done the best I 
 could," Billy explained hastily. "WTien I got out there, 
 I was up against a tough proposition, and I guess it would 
 have been tougher yet if I'd stopped to do much think- 
 ing." 
 
 "I don't know what your proposition was. But seems 
 to me if it had been mine I'd have found time to yell: 'All 
 right coming as soon as I can ! ' as I passed the open 
 window," Nick remarked dryly. "Mrs. May'll think 
 we're a nice lot." 
 
 But Billy broke into a flood of explanations, too proud 
 to excuse himself to Hilliard, after being, as he thought, 
 unjustly reproached, yet willing to justify himself in the 
 eyes of the lady. 
 
 He had dropped from the window, he said, just in time
 
 198 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 to see a dim figure, which looked like that of a Padre, dis- 
 appearing in the distance. He had started instantly in 
 pursuit. If he had waited to call out under the window 
 the figure would have disappeared, and he might not have 
 found it again. As it was the old man had gone so far, 
 and was going so fast, that it had taken some time to 
 catch up. He Billy had yelled. The Padre for 
 the Padre it was had eventually stopped. Then had 
 followed explanations why the key was in the church door, 
 and the door open; why the door was afterward locked, 
 and why the Padre was hurrying away from the Mission, 
 late in the evening, with the key in his pocket. And all 
 these explanations were simple enough, simpler than 
 Billy's own. 
 
 In the first place a gentleman in the hotel at Paso 
 Robles one who came often to the Mission of San Miguel, 
 and was a most important person had sent a message 
 asking that the church might be opened for him in the 
 afternoon. He wished to drive out, and bring a lady to 
 see the Mission. The Padre, obliged to spend the after- 
 noon at the bedside of a man dying at a distant farm- 
 house, stuck the key in the church door, with a note 
 attached, asking the lady and gentleman to lock the door 
 when ready to go away, and hide the key under a big 
 stone which the letter indicated. The vestments and altar 
 cloths, the great treasures of the church, had been pur- 
 posely left in an open box, that they might be inspected 
 by the visitors, and the Padre had departed with a grow- 
 ing uneasiness in his mind, lest the instructions should be 
 neglected. So strong was his presentiment, "though the 
 gentleman was not one to forget," that he felt compelled
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 199 
 
 to leave the sick man before nightfall, and hurry off to the 
 church to see if his fears were justified. He promised, 
 however, to return to the bedside immediately; and 
 luckily meeting the gentleman, heard a confession that 
 indeed the key had been forgotten. Only a short time 
 had passed since the church was left empty, therefore the 
 Padre had no further fear for the safety of the vestments. 
 He hurried on, missed seeing the motor, found the key in 
 the church door as he expected, gave it a quick turn in the 
 lock, took it out, put it in the pocket of his long gown, and 
 started back to the farm as fast as his legs would carry him. 
 
 "Well, wouldn't he give you the key?" Nick asked, 
 when the story had reached this point. 
 
 "Yes. He gave it to me. But it was pretty dark by 
 that time, and a good long way from the Mission. I lost 
 myself, and thought I was never going to get here," Billy 
 admitted. "I guess I must have wandered all round 
 Robin Hood's Barn, when, just as I was ready to give up 
 boat, the stars come out through a lot of clouds, and 
 showed me the roof of the church. I steered by that, and 
 here I am." 
 
 "I think we must be grateful, and not scold him," said 
 Angela. 
 
 "I did my best, anyhow," Billy persisted, "and I 
 brought this lantern out of the auto. The worst is, I don't 
 know how her lights '11 work, for thinkin' to be at the hotel 
 before dark, I didn't bring no water." 
 
 Nick stifled a word or two he would have liked to say, 
 reflecting that perhaps he was as much as to blame as Billy. 
 He ought to have left nothing to chance where Angela's 
 comfort and safety were concerned.
 
 200 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 They got water, though finding it meant further delay, 
 and after all, the acetylene lamps obstinately refused to 
 shine. It was the first time they had been used since 
 Nick bought the car, and he abused himself roundly for 
 not having tested their temper. Something was wrong, 
 something which neither his knowledge nor Billy's could 
 set right; and after tinkering for half an hour, they 
 started with no other light than that of the lantern which 
 Billy proposed to hold while Hilliard drove. 
 
 By this time Angela was thankful for the cloak she had 
 left in the car. It was nearly twelve; and the eight miles 
 which the Bright Angel would gaily have gobbled up in 
 the same number of minutes had she been able to use her 
 eyes, took an hour to negotiate. Like a wounded lioness 
 the car crawled along the dark road, illumined only by a 
 fitful spot of yellow light; and a deep-toned clock some- 
 where was striking one as she drew up before the door of 
 the hotel. 
 
 Most of the windows had gone to sleep, but a few near 
 the front entrance were twinkling wakef ully, and the door 
 flew open in response to the call of the motor. A servant of 
 the hotel came out, but behind the liveried man appeared 
 the tall figure of John Falconer, with a woman at his 
 side. 
 
 "We've been anxious about you," Falconer said, coming 
 forward. 
 
 That "we" was suggestive; and Angela's fancy sprang 
 to a happy ending for the marred romance. As she entered 
 the hall, dazzled by the lights, her first glance was for the 
 woman who stood beside Falconer, smiling though a little 
 shy. It did not need Falconer's introduction to tell that
 
 THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK 201 
 
 this was Mademoiselle Dobieski; and if the singer had 
 lost her youth in Siberia, Paso Robles, or the magic 
 medicine of love, had given it back. Her pale face, lit 
 by immense dark eyes, was radiant, and though she 
 leaned lightly on a stick, it seemed that this was a 
 mere concession to a doctor's order, or a habit not quite 
 forgotten. 
 
 "This is the lady I told you of," Falconer said to Angela, 
 when he had heard the story of the adventure. "I told 
 her about you, too, and she would sit up to see you. So 
 would your maid, of course, who has been in a great state 
 of anxiety and even the cat was depressed. Mademoi- 
 selle Dobieski has been trying to console your poor Irish 
 girl." 
 
 "I could not bear her to be unhappy," said the singer, 
 in a voice of a curiously thrilling quality. " I am so happy 
 myself ! This is the best day of my life. I don't want it 
 to end." 
 
 "The doctor has told her she will be cured," Falconer 
 explained. " You can guess whether it has been a happy 
 day for me! And she has promised to be my wife. It 
 was in the Mission church of San Miguel, bless him ! " 
 
 "Then it was you who forgot the key in the church, 
 door!" exclaimed Angela. "I felt it was, somehow. 
 And no wonder you forgot!" She threw a smiling glance 
 at Nick. 
 
 Nick said nothing, but he too blessed San Miguel. He 
 knew nothing about the bodily ailments which brought 
 people to sulphur springs, but he thought that no torture 
 of the body could be worse than jealousy; and of that 
 pain San Miguel had in a moment cured him.
 
 202 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 He blessed also the owl which had rustled and made 
 Angela want him near her. 
 
 "I believe I'll catch it, and have it tamed at my place," 
 he said to himself. " I'll give it a good time all the rest of 
 its life." 
 
 And next morning early, while Angela slept, he motored 
 out again to the Mission, found the Padre, caught the owl 
 which was young and dazed, brought it to the hotel, and 
 hired a boy to take it by train to Bakersfield.
 
 XV 
 ANGELA AT HER WORST 
 
 BUT something had happened to Angela next day. 
 That was clear, from her manner. What had changed 
 her from a clinging, sweetly mid- Victorian girl into a 
 reserved, coldly polite woman, Nick could not imagine. 
 Her cool "Good morning" gave the first sign of a fallen 
 temperature. His way of beginning the day was suited to 
 the ending of yesterday : hers denied all that made yester- 
 day memorable. Could it be that in recalling the scene 
 in the Mission church, Mrs. May disapproved of something 
 he had said, or some blundering act, and wished to "put 
 him in his place"? Or still more terrible was she 
 unhappy about Falconer? Nick was confused, miserable, 
 and because he did not know how to take her, or con- 
 sequently how to bear himself, he became self-conscious 
 and awkward. 
 
 Angela did not refuse to go to Santa Ysabel and the 
 mysterious warm lake, but she said that she would sit 
 behind as her head ached a little, and she would feel the 
 
 wind less than on the front seat. Nick knew, somehow, 
 
 
 
 that she did not wish to talk to him. Yet there was 
 nothing definite in her manner, of which he could take 
 hold and say, "Have I offended you?" 
 
 "Perhaps it's only that she's tired, and didn't sleep 
 
 203
 
 204 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 well," Nick tried to persuade himself, because, in reason, 
 he did not see what else it could be. "As like as not, 
 she'll be different to-morrow." 
 
 But there was to be no to-morrow. 
 
 The blow did not fall until he had brought her back to 
 the hotel. Then, before Nick could propose a new plan, 
 she said quickly, in the presence of Falconer, who had 
 strolled out to meet the Bright Angel, "Oh, Mr. Hilliard, 
 I think you'll be glad to hear you are going to be relieved 
 of all this bother I've been making you. I'm engaged to 
 play chaperon for a few days. If / will go to Monterey, 
 Mademoiselle Dobieski will go, and of course that will be 
 a great, great pleasure to Mr. Falconer. You know, 
 don't you, that our plans were never made for a day ahead? 
 She and I will travel in the wonderful private car, and meet 
 Mrs. Harland at the other end of the journey. I know 
 Mr. Falconer means to ask you too, so we shan't be saying 
 good-bye, or even au revoir, if you accept. His idea is for 
 you to let your chauffeur drive the Bright Angel, and meet 
 you where you like. But he'll tell you all about that, of 
 course. We arranged this at breakfast, which Mademoi- 
 selle Dobieski had with me, in my sitting-room." 
 
 With this, she walked away, leaving the men to settle 
 the question between themselves. Nick thought then 
 that he understood. She mentioned the promised invita- 
 tion, rather than break away from him too abruptly, but 
 certainly she could not wish him to accept. If she had not 
 wanted to escape from his society, she would not have 
 fallen in with Falconer's suggestion. Perhaps she had 
 even asked Falconer to help her out of a situation which, 
 for some dreadful reason, she suddenly found impossible.
 
 ANGELA AT HER WORST 205 
 
 This was very likely Falconer's way of coming to the 
 rescue. The excuse seemed a fairly good one, and the 
 invitation was calculated to save sensitive feelings. But 
 it was not quite good enough or the feelings were too 
 sensitive. Nick thanked Falconer, and said that he was 
 sorry to miss such a pleasure, but could not trust Billy to 
 drive the Bright Angel : he must stick to the helm. 
 
 When Angela came back in a few minutes with Sonia 
 Dobieski, Falconer was still trying to persuade Billiard 
 to change his mind, proposing that, if Billy could not drive, 
 the Bright Angel should be put upon a tram. For an in- 
 stant Nick's eyes sought Angela's, but she was tucking 
 a rose into her belt, and did not look up. Her lowered 
 eyelids and long lashes gave her a look of deliberate remote- 
 ness. Nick again expressed his gratitude, but was "afraid 
 he couldn't manage, although he would like it mighty 
 well." This time he made no excuse for his refusal, and 
 Falconer let the subject drop. He saw that something was 
 wrong, and feared that he had been selfish in suggesting 
 an idea which would give him Sonia for a guest. Certainly 
 Mrs. May had accepted readily; but now there was a 
 jarring note. He was sorry, but could do nothing more, 
 except to express regret that Hilliard would not be of the 
 party on board the McCloud. Mademoiselle Dobieski 
 followed suit, and, in common civility, Angela had to say 
 what they said whether she meant it or not. She had to 
 look up, too, when she spoke, and Nick's eyes met hers. 
 She blushed like a schoolgirl, and glanced away, adding 
 quickly that she would have liked his advice as well as 
 Falconer's, at Monterey. " You know, Mr. Falconer thinks 
 I shall want to buy land along the Seventeen-Mile Drive,
 
 206 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 and build my house there," she said. "I wonder? Since 
 Santa Barbara, I've been thinking I might prefer the 
 North. But I can't tell, one bit. There's something 
 about the climate of California I suppose it must be 
 the climate ! which makes me in two minds about the 
 same things, every day." 
 
 Nick was not sure whether to take this as an excuse or 
 a stab. He was sure of but one thing. Something hideous 
 had come between him and his angel, while he slept and 
 dreamed of her; and nothing would ever be the same 
 again. Of course it must be his fault; and if he were 
 used to women he would perhaps see what he had done 
 that a woman would disapprove. Or perhaps, even so, 
 he would be in the dark, for there were all the other women 
 in the world, and there was Angela May. She was a law 
 unto herself. It looked just now as if she were a hard and 
 cruel law, but she must not be blamed. She had a right 
 to break with him . She had promised nothing . 
 
 "I think," said Nick, when he had learned that the 
 McCloud was to be "hitched" to a train, in the after- 
 noon, " I'd better be getting on. I might as well say good- 
 bye to you all no w. ' ' When he shook hands with Mrs . May, 
 Falconer and Sonia Dobieski turned aside a little, speaking 
 to each other. "I hope you understand, Mr. Hilliard, 
 and don't think I'm being rude after all your kindness," 
 Angela said, melting a little; "I could hardly refuse 
 them, when it was a question of chaperoning a newly 
 engaged couple; and I thought you would join us, of 
 course." 
 
 This concession gave Nick an unexpected chance. He 
 dared to hope that it was an olive branch held out. " Did
 
 ANGELA AT HER WORST 207 
 
 you really think that?" he asked quickly, in a low 
 voice. 
 
 "Certainly. Why not?" 
 
 " Oh, I don't know ! That's the trouble. But if you 
 did think it, maybe you'll let me see you again maybe 
 this won't be good-bye for always?" 
 
 "Dear me, I hope not, indeed!" she answered in a 
 light, frivolous tone again. "We're sure to meet. You 
 come to San Francisco sometimes I've heard you say. 
 I shall be there oh, ages." 
 
 "You'll let me call?" Nick was faintly very faintly 
 encouraged, not to hope for much, but for a very 
 little; for a chance to retrieve some of the ground he 
 had lost in a night; to begin low down, and work 
 up. 
 
 " I shall be glad to see you at the Fairmont Hotel, when 
 I get there." She was almost too frankly cordial suddenly. 
 The tone would have been perfect if the words had been 
 spoken in New Orleans, before a thousand things had 
 happened. But they had passed that stage now for 
 good or ill. 
 
 Then they finished shaking hands, and a few minutes 
 later Nick left her with Falconer and Sonia Dobieski. 
 The instant he had gone, Angela would have given a good 
 deal to call him back, although she was sure she had done 
 only her duty to herself and him. 
 
 Her reasons for the great change were not mysterious 
 at all. They were very clear, and seemed to her very 
 virtuous, very praiseworthy up to the last minute. Then 
 she thought that she was a prig, and a wretch, and several 
 other things which she would have been furious to be
 
 208 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 thought by anybody else. She had wanted Nick to realize 
 
 that is, she had felt it her duty to make him realize 
 that things could not go on as they were, after last night. 
 She had been incredibly silly in the Mission church. All 
 night long she had scolded herself for the way she had "be- 
 haved" and let the "forest creature" behave holding 
 her hand, and sitting as close to her on the gallery stairs 
 as if they were engaged in a desperate ballroom flirta- 
 tion. She must show him that she was not really a 
 stupid, sentimental person. She made up her mind 
 that they must begin all over again, the very first thing 
 in the morning; and, true to her resolution, she had, in- 
 deed, begun all over again. She had torn a hole in the 
 net which was binding them together all through her 
 own silly fault! 
 
 In her heart, she had wanted him to accept Falconer's 
 invitation; but she had not wanted him to know that she 
 had wanted him. The thing was to give the impression 
 that she would be pleased if he went, and not miserable if 
 he refused. If they all went to Monterey together on Mr. 
 Falconer's private car, they would not be losing each other 
 
 as friends; they would merely be adjusting their rela- 
 tions, which, owning to San Miguel, had suddenly got 
 dangerously out of hand. 
 
 It was only when Nick's back was turned, and he 
 was going, that she saw things from his point of 
 view. Why had she not been clever enough to 
 keep to the happy medium and not make him think 
 that he had done something dreadfully wrong that 
 on second thoughts she was blaming him for last night, 
 and punishing him? Surely she might have managed
 
 ANGELA AT HER WORST 209 
 
 better she a woman of the world, and he a mere 
 "forest creature"? 
 
 But it was too late. The thing was done, and badly 
 done. Angela saw herself a worm, and Nick noble as a tall 
 pine-tree of the mountains. Still, it was best that the 
 break should have come, one way or another. 
 
 "Why on earth should I care?" she asked herself 
 angrily. " We could never go on having a real friendship, 
 all our lives I and a man like that. He's a splendid 
 fellow of course, above me in lots of ways; but we're of 
 different worlds. I don't see how anything could change 
 that . What a pity it all is not for my sake, but for his ! " 
 And she thought how awkward his fit of shy self -conscious- 
 ness had made him appear in contrast with a cultured 
 man, a cosmopolitan like Falconer. It was she who had 
 made him self-conscious. She knew that. But there was 
 the fact. Falconer was a man of her world. NickHilliard 
 was not. It was sad that Nick, with his good looks and 
 intelligence and fine qualities, could not have had ad- 
 vantages when a boy could not have gone to a university 
 or at least associated with gentlefolk as their equal which 
 he was in heart. But now he had got those slipshod ways 
 of speaking he could never change. And there were a 
 thousand other things which put him outside the pale of 
 the men she knew. She would not listen when a sarcastic 
 voice within defended Nick, sneering, "Oh, yes, Prince 
 Paolo di Sereno and some of his friends are far superior 
 to Mr. Hilliard, aren't they?" 
 
 Irritated because the "forest creature" had become of 
 paramount importance in her life when he should remain 
 the merest episode, she was surprised and even horrified
 
 210 
 
 to find herself despairing because he had done what she 
 forced him to do. She could have cried for what he must 
 be thinking of her. She wanted to go on seeing his faults, 
 but in her changing mood she could see only her own. 
 "He is one of the noblest gentlemen in the world," some- 
 thing inside her said. "You aren't worthy to black his 
 boots ! " Then the picture of herself blacking them the 
 shiny ones that were too tight rose before her eyes, and 
 she was afraid that she was going to laugh or else to sob. 
 Anyhow, he was gone, and there was an end of it all ! 
 
 But when afternoon came, things were different again. 
 In Falconer's private car, where she, Princess di Sereno, 
 was the chaperon, and Sonia Dobieski was queen, Angela 
 was so desperately homesick for Nick Hilliard that she did 
 not see how she could get on without his friendship. 
 "After all," she reminded herself, excusing her incon- 
 sistency, "/ didn't send him away. He went of his own 
 accord. He might be here now. He refused to come with 
 us. It's only that we oughtn't to be rushing about together 
 any more in that absurd way. It won't do. Things keep 
 happening unexpected things like last night. Still 
 if he comes to San Francisco if he asks again to 'show 
 me the sights' I don't see why I shouldn't say yes just 
 to so small a favour and to make up hi case his feel- 
 ings are hurt." 
 
 In her heart she knew that his feelings were hurt. But 
 had she not hurt her own? 
 
 There was a piano in the drawing-room part of the car. 
 Sonia was singing to Falconer. They had forgotten Mrs. 
 May, without whose martyred presence they could not have 
 had this happiness. The soul of the Russian girl seemed
 
 ANGELA AT HER WORST 211 
 
 to pour out with her voice, as upon a tide. The sorrow and 
 pain of her past exile were in it at first : then it rose to the 
 joy of new life in a new world. The sweetness of the voice 
 and all that it meant of love after anguish stabbed Angela 
 as she listened in the distance, like a knife dipped in 
 honey.
 
 xvn 
 
 SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE 
 
 THINGS were better at Del Monte. Mrs. Harland 
 was there, and made a delightful hostess. It rather 
 amused Angela to watch Theo Dene with Sonia Dobieski, 
 and to see how delightful Falconer's sister was to both. 
 But somehow she contrived that Miss Dene should not be 
 of the motoring party for the Seventeen-Mile Drive. A 
 young officer from the Presidio was produced, to compen- 
 sate as far as could be for her frankly lamented "failure"; 
 and Theo resigned herself to a second-best flirtation. It 
 was consoling to think that Falconer had been in love with 
 the Dobieski long before he saw her: and Theo could 
 almost forgive the Russian, whom she considered plain and 
 gawky compared to herself. She could not, however, for- 
 give "Mrs. May" for having come into the party, and for 
 being liked by the host better than she was liked. Judging 
 another woman by herself, she thought that, out of revenge 
 for one or two little things (such as the talk about Mrs. 
 Gay lor and Nick Hilliard), Angela was trying to "take 
 away" her California friends. If Theo had considered 
 it worth while, she would have broken her word, and told 
 who "Mrs. May" really was; but that would be worse 
 than useless, as it would only make Angela seem of more 
 importance than at present. However, on hearing that 
 
 212
 
 SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE 213 
 
 Mrs. May might decide to "run up to Shasta and the 
 McCloud River," she promised herself a certain amount of 
 fun. She had reminded Mrs. Harland so often about writ- 
 ing to Mrs. Gaylor, that at last the letter had been sent. 
 The lady who was supposed to have a claim upon Nick 
 Hilliard was asked to visit Rushing River Camp, as Fal- 
 coner's place was called; and a telegram had been dis- 
 patched by Falconer himself to Hilliard at the St. Francis 
 Hotel in San Francisco, whither he was bound. If they 
 all came yes, Theo would have her fun. 
 
 She thought of this, as she flirted with the officer from 
 the Presidio, and promised to make him the hero of her 
 next book. But the party in Falconer's motor thought of 
 her not at all. 
 
 Angela was enchanted with the peninsula of Monterey. 
 In the dark arbour of the cedar forest Falconer kept order- 
 ing the chauffeur of a hired car to slow down, or stop. The 
 practically minded young man believed that this great 
 gentleman and the three ladies must be slightly mad. It 
 was so queer to stop a car when she was going well just 
 to stare around and talk poetry about a lot of trees. 
 
 One of the ladies, the prettiest and youngest, with yellow 
 hair under her gray motor-bonnet, said they weren't trees 
 but people either nymphs or witches and the rest of 
 the party humoured her, talking nonsense about Greece 
 and goddesses. He thought the pleasure of a motor trip 
 was "going some"; but his passengers seemed to have other 
 ideas. They were idiots, of course, but they seemed mighty 
 happy. 
 
 Angela, however, was less happy than the others, less 
 happy than she tried to seem. She had a dim idea that,
 
 214 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 if she had come with Nick, she would have thought this 
 the most beautiful place on earth, and that she had found 
 the ideal spot for a home. As it was, in spite of all the 
 loveliness, she was not sure of herself, or what she wanted. 
 This made her ashamed. She was as self-conscious as Nick 
 had been yesterday, and in sheer panic fear lest "they" 
 should think she was pining for Hilliard, or grieving over 
 some stupid quarrel, she said that she would certainly 
 buy land in the forest. She must not lose such a chance. 
 If for any reason she should change her mind, she could 
 always sell, couldn't she? On this point Falconer re- 
 assured her. "You can sell to me," he laughed in the 
 light-hearted way that surprised the chauffeur. "You 
 build a house and furnish it, and take all the trouble, 
 and I'll buy it from you to live in myself when I 
 want to imagine I'm in Greece or Sicily, as I do some- 
 times when I'm too busy to go there." And he looked 
 at Sonia. 
 
 Though he laughed, he was in earnest, and Angela began 
 to feel that she might want to keep her house if 
 she built it. She saw herself walking under the strange 
 dark trees to the gray rocks, to look at the seals. 
 Nick was with her. . . . She hurried to think of 
 something else. Nick would not be here. They 
 would have forgotten each other by the time her 
 house was built. Perhaps he would be married to his 
 Mrs. Gay lor. 
 
 After all it did not seem so romantic to have a place 
 where she could go and look at some seals, alone. Stupid ! 
 Because she had come to California on purpose to have a 
 place where she could be alone.
 
 ' 'Angela was enchanted with the peninsula of Monterey "
 
 SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE 215 
 
 "How absurd women are!" she thought, irritably. 
 "As soon as we can have what we want, we don't want it. 
 I suppose it must be that. Now I long for all kinds of new 
 things I can't possibly have, which would be very bad for 
 me if I could." 
 
 After lunching at the wonderful Club House built of 
 logs, they went back by way of Monterey, and in the sleepy 
 old town which holds more California history than any 
 other they wandered about, "seeing the sights," one after 
 another. They paid their respects to the monument of 
 Father Juniperra Serra, who landed at Monterey with his 
 soldiers a hundred and forty years ago a long time in 
 America, where life moves quickly. Then, next in interest, 
 came the verandaed Custom House, built under Spanish 
 rule, and looking just the place to spend a lazy afternoon 
 in gossiping about lovely ladies, and pretending to do im- 
 portant business for the Crown. There was the oldest 
 Court-house in California, too, and the oldest brick house, 
 and the oldest frame building " brought round the 
 Horn"; the oldest theatre, glorified by Jenny Lind's sing- 
 ing; and, indeed, all the oldest old things to be found any- 
 where in history or romance. But, though Angela dared 
 not say so, she wondered what had become of the really 
 old things, new in the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury when Don Sebastian Viscanio landed to name the 
 town in honour of Philip the Third Monterey or 
 "King of the Mountains." 
 
 That night they all walked together under the great 
 trees of the park at Del Monte. A lake (where black swans 
 threaded their way like dark spirits among white water- 
 lilies) drank the last light of day, and little waves the swans
 
 216 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 made were ruffled with dim silver. Above, the sky was 
 another deep blue lake lilied with stars; and as darkness 
 fell, hot and sweet-scented as the veil of an Eastern woman, 
 slowly the boundaries were lost between forest and garden. 
 Outlines faded and blended into one another. The fuchsias, 
 big as babies' fists, the poppies like dolls' crdpe sunbonnets, 
 the roses large enough for nightingales' nests, lost their 
 colour, and seemed to go out in the dark, like brilliant 
 bubbles that break into nothingness. Here and there 
 yellow light flashed near the ground, far from the walkers, 
 as if a faint firefly were astray in a tangle of flowers. 
 Chinese gardeners, deft and mysterious as brownies, were 
 working at night to change the arrangement of flower-beds 
 so that the dwellers in the hotel should have a surprise 
 by day. 
 
 Theo Dene talked of Carmen Gaylor, telling stories 
 she had heard of the rich widow from people whose 
 acquaintance she had first made at Del Monte. " I am 
 longing to meet the woman," she said; "I think she must 
 be an interesting character, typically Spanish, or Mex- 
 ican or, anyhow, not American from what they all 
 say. A beauty vain and jealous, and a fearful 
 temper. I shouldn't like to interfere with a woman 
 of that sort in what she thought her 'rights,' should 
 you?" 
 
 "One can't interfere with a person one has never met, 
 can one?" Angela remarked, pretending not to under- 
 stand. 
 
 "Maybe not, in real We," Theo agreed. "I'm always 
 losing myself in my books, and forgetting that the world 
 outside isn't like my world, made of romance. But you
 
 g
 
 SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE 217 
 
 can understand, can't you; here where it's so beautiful 
 that even a married woman who has, of course, left love 
 far behind her in Europe must feel some faint yearning 
 to be the heroine of a romance? " 
 
 Princess di Sereno wondered why she had ever been nice 
 to Theo in Rome.
 
 XVIII 
 LA DONNA E MOBILE 
 
 ANGELA stood at her hotel window, looking down 
 over the gilded hills and purple valleys of the most roman- 
 tic city in America San Francisco, the port of adventure; 
 away to the Golden Gate, where the sea poured in a 
 flood of gold under a sea of rosy fog a foaming, rush- 
 ing sea of sunset cloud, beneath a high dome of fire away 
 to the fortified islands and to Mount Tamalpais. 
 
 She had arrived only a few hours ago, after two days 
 spent at Del Monte, and was waiting for Nick. 
 
 There had been a note sent up the day before, and she 
 had not been in the hotel twenty minutes when he had 
 telephoned. It had been good to hear his voice, so good 
 that Angela had felt obliged to stiffen her resolution. 
 Would she let him call? he asked; and she said: "Yes, 
 come before dinner." Her impulse was to say, " Dine with 
 me," but she would not. Instead, she added, "I dine at 
 eight." It was now after seven, and she had dressed to be 
 ready for Nick. He might arrive at any minute. Angela 's 
 heart was beating quickly but perhaps it was the glory 
 of the sunset that made her blood run fast. She was listen- 
 ing for the bell of the telephone, yet when the sharp sound 
 came it went through her nerves with the thrill of the un- 
 expected. 
 
 218
 
 LA DONNA E MOBILE 219 
 
 "A gentleman, Mr. Hilliard, has called," announced the 
 small impersonal voice at the other end of the wire. 
 
 "Ask him to come up," Angela answered, feeling virt- 
 uously firm in her resolve that really had not weakened 
 once hi the last five days ! 
 
 The pretty white room was full of rose-coloured twilight, 
 so pink, it seemed, that if you closed your hand tightly you 
 might find a little ball of crushed rose-petals there when 
 you opened it. It would be a pity to shut out so much love- 
 liness by switching on the electricity, so when Nick came 
 he found Angela, a tall, slim black figure, with a faint gold 
 nimbus round its head, silhouetted against a background 
 of flaming sky. Standing as she did with her back to the 
 window, he could hardly see her face, but the sunset 
 streamed full into his as he crossed the room, holding out 
 his hand. 
 
 His dark face and deep-lighted eyes looked almost un- 
 earthly to Angela seen in this wonderful light. No man 
 could really be as handsome as he seemed ! She must re- 
 member that he had never been so before, never would 
 be again. It was only an effect. " It's like meeting him 
 transformed, in another world," was the thought that 
 flashed through her head. And the immense height of 
 this great house on a hill, the apparent distance from the 
 veiled city beneath, with its starlike lights beginning to 
 glitter through clouds of shadow, all intensified the fancy. 
 For an instant it was as if they two met alone together on 
 a mountain-top, immeasurably high above the tired, strug- 
 gling crowd of human things where once their place 
 had been. 
 
 Strange what fantastic ideas jump into your mind!
 
 220 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Angela was ashamed; and her embarrassment, mingling 
 with admiration of Nick which must be hidden, chilled her 
 greeting into commonplace. Yet she could hardly take 
 her eyes from his good looks. 
 
 Nick had dressed himself for evening in some of those 
 clothes bought in haste, ready-made, to please a woman 
 who had laughed at them and at him, during his abbrevi- 
 ated visit in New York. The woman did not laugh now. 
 She forgot that she had ever laughed; and the thought 
 was in her mind that the large white oval of evening shirt 
 set off his head like a marble pedestal. 
 
 "How do you do?" she said, giving him her hand, and 
 holding it rather high, in the English way, which seemed 
 excessively formal to Nick. "I'm glad to see you 
 again." 
 
 Nick's heart went down. Her voice did not sound glad. 
 This was just what he had expected, though not what he 
 had hoped. She had changed toward him the day they 
 parted, and though she had flung him a word of encourage- 
 ment, evidently she had gone on changing more and more. 
 There seemed little good in asking what he had come to 
 ask; but he had to get through with it now. 
 
 "I guess I don't need to tell you I'm glad to see you," 
 he said. He looked at that nimbus round her head, as she 
 stood with her back to the window. He could say no more, 
 though he had meant to add something. 
 
 "What are you thinking about?" she questioned him 
 almost sharply. 
 
 Nick laughed, embarrassed. "I was thinking some 
 words that sound like poetry or no, they were thinking 
 themselves. Night in her eyes, morning in her hair!
 
 LA DONNA E MOBILE 221 
 
 Because standing like you do, Mrs. May, a kind of gold 
 powder wreath seems to be floating around your head." 
 
 She laughed too. " You must have been reading poetry 
 since I left you !" 
 
 "No, that came out of my head. But I've been thinking 
 a whole lot. About a good many things only most of 
 them were about you, or came back to you if they didn't 
 begin there. Don't you know how one idea can sort of 
 run through all your thoughts? " 
 
 "I know," said Angela. Just so had the idea of him 
 been running through all her thoughts these last few days. 
 "But," she added with an effort, "why should you have 
 been thinking of me? We're such new friends. " 
 
 "Yes," Nick admitted, "but you can't always account 
 for your thoughts." 
 
 "Of course not. And I'm grateful for a few of yours. 
 Have you been enjoying San Francisco? Do sit down. 
 And would you mind putting on the electricity?" 
 
 "Must I? It's beautiful like this." 
 
 "Very well. Leave it so." 
 
 She sat on a sofa, still with her back to the window, and 
 Nick took a chair facing the light. 
 
 " I've had a feeling on me of waiting," said Nick. " Just 
 that. I haven't gone around much, though this is the first 
 time I've been in San Francisco, except for a day, since the 
 city's grown up after the fire. I was waiting to see if you'd 
 let me show you things, as you " 
 
 "As I what? " Angela asked, when he paused. 
 
 "I was going to say, as you partly promised. But that 
 wouldn't be fair, because you didn't really promise any- 
 thing."
 
 222 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 If he had claimed a right, it would have been easy to 
 say that it didn't exist, but he made things harder by 
 claiming nothing. Still, she went on: "No, of course, I 
 couldn't promise. As I'm situated now, it's difficult to 
 make plans. However, if you've really waited for me, it 
 was kind, and there's no reason why I shouldn't ask you 
 to show me San Francisco. Already, even though I haven't 
 gone about at all, except just 'taxying' up to the hotel, 
 I can see it's wonderful. From this window, it's like 
 looking out on Rome, with all its hills Rome trans- 
 planted to the sea. And I know you, and don't know 
 Mr. Morehouse, who's my only other resource here. Be- 
 sides, he's a busy man; and if you're busy, you pretend 
 not to be." 
 
 "I'm having a vacation," Nick explained. 
 
 "All the nicer of you, spending some of it on me. But 
 I mustn't let you spend too much. Besides, I have as 
 little time as you have for running about the country. 
 Everything has changed with me since I saw you last." 
 
 "I was afraid so!" Nick exclaimed, before he could 
 stop to think. 
 
 "Only because I've bought land," Angela said hastily. 
 " Some of California five acres on the peninsula of 
 Monterey is mine! I must decide on an architect. 
 Isn't that exciting? Then, while he's working out our 
 joint ideas, perhaps I'll make a visit to Mrs. Harland. 
 I'm rather tired, and I believe it will do me good." 
 
 "I expect it will," said Nick bravely. 
 
 "Think of the journey I've had from Europe, and not a 
 day's rest since," went on Angela, with the air of excusing 
 herself.
 
 LA DONNA MOBILE 223 
 
 "It must have been mighty hard on you," Nick agreed. 
 He flushed faintly, as if he deserved reproach for incon- 
 siderateness. 
 
 "Not that I felt the need of rest till till now," she 
 hurried on. "It was delicious sailing along with your 
 Bright Angel. When I'm at Rushing River Camp I shall 
 think of her again, wondering who is spinning about with 
 you in my place. For you'll often take your friends out 
 when you're at home?" 
 
 It was on the tip of Nick's tongue to answer, "Bright 
 Angel was bought for you; named after you, and I can 
 never bear to take anybody else, now you've finished with 
 her and me." But that, like claiming a promise half 
 made, "wouldn't have been fair." If he hinted that the 
 car had been got for her sake, she would be distressed. 
 Some men in his place would have said whether meaning 
 it or not "No other woman shall ever go with me in that 
 auto." And the wish to say this was in Nick's mind, but 
 he knew that it would be in bad taste. Besides, there was 
 a woman who would want to try his car, and it would be 
 unfriendly to deny her. So he said, " There is one friend 
 I must take: Mrs. Gaylor. I've talked to you about 
 her. She'll be interested in Bright Angel when I get 
 home." 
 
 " Yes ; of course," replied Angela. It was extraordinary 
 how much she disliked the picture of Nick and a beautiful 
 dark woman together in the car where her place had been 
 by his side. Could it be that Theo Dene was right? Was 
 Nick's interest in her Angela less than, and different 
 from, his interest in Mrs. Gaylor? She had no right to 
 know, no right to want to know, still less to try to find out.
 
 224 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Yet she felt that not to know very soon would make her 
 lose sleep, and appetite, and interest in daily Me. 
 
 Silence fell between them for a moment. The rose of 
 sunset burned to ashes-of-rose. A small clock on the 
 mantelpiece mentioned in a discreet voice that it was a 
 quarter to eight. Nick got up, rather heavily for a man 
 so lithe as he. 
 
 "Well, I must go," he said. "Thank you for letting 
 me take you around San Francisco. May I come to- 
 morrow morning?" 
 
 "Oh, do. About half-past nine." She got up also, 
 feeling miserable, though, as she pointed out to herself, 
 for no real reason. 
 
 "I'll be prompt." He put out his hand, and she laid 
 hers in it, looking up to his face with a smile which would 
 not for the world have been wistful. Suddenly his fingers 
 gripped hers convulsively. 
 
 " So it's all over ! " he whispered. 
 
 "No, no; not all over," she contradicted him. "There's 
 to-morrow." 
 
 "Yes, there's to-morrow," he echoed. 
 
 "I told you at first," and she tried to laugh, "that 
 'sufficient for the day was the trip thereof.' Nothing 
 was to be planned ahead." 
 
 "It's all right, Mrs. May," Nick answered. "I want 
 to be glad you're going to have that McCloud River visit. 
 And, of course, you've got your new place to think of. 
 No wonder you're sick of travelling and want to settle 
 down. It's all right, and there's to-morrow, as you say." 
 
 He shook her hand, moving it up and down mechan- 
 ically, then dropped it, and turned to go. Another second
 
 LA DONNA E MOBILE 225 
 
 and the door was opening. Then it was shutting behind 
 him. He had gone! And though he was coming to-morrow 
 for a little while, nothing would ever be as it had been be- 
 tween them. It was now, not to-morrow, that she was 
 sending him definitely out of her life; and he understood. 
 
 Never had Angela thought so quickly. She trembled as 
 she stood staring at the shut door. Her cheeks burned, 
 and a pulse beat in her throat, under the string of pearls. 
 She clasped and unclasped her hands, and they were very 
 cold. 
 
 "He shan't go to that woman, and take her out in my 
 place in the Bright Angel!" she said out aloud, and flew to 
 the door. 
 
 "Mr. Billiard! Mr. Hilliard!" she called. 
 
 Everything seemed to depend though this was non- 
 sense ! on his not having got to the elevator. She stood 
 in the doorway, waiting to see what would happen, her 
 blood pounding as if she had taken a really important 
 step; which, of course, was not the case. 
 
 He had turned a corner of the corridor and was out of 
 sight, but her voice reached him, and he came back. 
 
 "Was there something you forgot to tell me?" he 
 asked. Perhaps she was going to say that after all she 
 would not go out to-morrow. 
 
 "No, not that I forgot something I want to say. 
 Come in again." 
 
 She whisked the tail of her black chiffon dress back into 
 the room. He followed her, wondering and silently 
 anxious. 
 
 "I've changed my mind," she said in a low voice. 
 (There ! He had known it. She was not going.)
 
 226 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Would you still care to be my 'trail guide' in the 
 Yosemite Valley? " 
 
 "Would I care? " echoed Nick. 
 
 "Then we'll go. I'll give up the McCloud River. I'll 
 telephone Mrs. Harland she's in San Francisco till day 
 after to-morrow. I'll find an excuse I haven't had 
 time to think it out yet. But I don 't care what happens, I 
 won't change again! I'm going to the Yosemite if you'll 
 take me." 
 
 He looked at her searchingly. "Because you're kind- 
 hearted, and afraid you've hurt me " 
 
 "No no ! Because I want to go! " 
 
 Women are strange, and hard to understand, when they 
 are worth taking the trouble to understand; and even 
 then they cannot understand themselves.
 
 XIX 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 
 
 ANGELA was ridiculously happy next morning. She 
 had no regrets. Nick had stayed to dinner after all, 
 and they had made plans. There was nothing in this, 
 really, she reminded herself, laughing five times an 'hour; 
 nothing at all. But it was about as wild and exciting as 
 if as if it were an elopement: to have given up every- 
 thing she had almost decided upon, and to be going to the 
 Yosemite Valley with Nick, whom she had intended 
 gently to put in his place at a distance from hers. 
 
 "There will never, never be anything in my life again 
 like this," she said. "I've never lived. I've never done 
 the things I wanted to do. There was always some one or 
 something to keep me back. Now, for a week or a fort- 
 night, I shall live live ! nothing and no one shall keep me 
 back." She knew how absolutely contradictory this was, 
 after taking so much pains to "let the 'forest creature' 
 down gently," and begin all over again. But she did not 
 care. Nothing mattered, except that she could not send 
 him to Mrs. Gaylor. As gaily as she had embarked upon 
 the "little adventure" at Los Angeles, did she now face 
 the great one. 
 
 Nick, too, was violently happy, happier than he had 
 ever been or supposed it possible to be. At Los Angeles 
 
 227
 
 228 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 he had hardly dared to hope for anything beyond the 
 pleasure of having this woman by his side for a few hours. 
 Since then, his feelings had, as he expressed it to himself, 
 been running up and down, like a thermometer in change- 
 able weather; but they had been "mostly down," and 
 during the last few days had mounted little above freezing- 
 point. Now the sudden bound bewildered him. He did 
 not know why Angela had changed again at the very 
 moment when she had seemed most cold; but she had 
 changed, and almost fiercely he determined now to fight 
 for her. He loved her, and she must know what was in his 
 heart. She could not do what she had just agreed to do 
 unless she liked and trusted him : and he would make the 
 most of all the days to come. He would keep her forever 
 if he could. 
 
 Her sudden throwing over of her own plans, for his sake, 
 seemed too good to be true, especially after her strange 
 conduct at Paso Robles; but like a boy who dreams he 
 has all the Christmas presents he ever coveted in vain, 
 and wakes to find them his, he reminded himself that it 
 was true true true ! 
 
 Angela did not tell Nick the excuse she offered Mrs. 
 Harland for giving up her visit. It was enough for him 
 that it was given up. He would have been even more 
 proud and pleased, however, if he had known how frankly 
 she confessed her real intentions. 
 
 To do that seemed to Angela the only way. To have 
 fibbed a little, or even to have prevaricated whitely, 
 would have spoiled everything. 
 
 "I find, dear Mrs. Harland," she said in her letter, 
 "that I can't tear myself from San Francisco. If I go
 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 229 
 
 with you to Shasta and the McCloud River, and come 
 back in a week or a fortnight to do my sightseeing, 
 nothing will be the same. I believe you will understand 
 how I feel. My impressions will be broken. Besides, Mr. 
 Hilliard is here now, and willing to show me what I ought 
 to see. I'm afraid I seemed to repay his kindness by 
 being rude to him at Paso Robles. After San Francisco, he 
 volunteers to be my 'trail guide' through the Yosemite 
 Valley, and if I put off that trip too long I mayn't get so 
 good a guide. Mr. Morehouse has advised me to take him, 
 and says these things are done in this Western World, 
 where gossip is blown away like mist by the winds that 
 sweep through the Golden Gate. Besides, why should 
 any one gossip? There is no cause; and I am nobody, 
 and known to few. I'm not worth gossiping about! 
 But I wonder if you'll ever again invite me to Rushing 
 River Camp? I hardly dare expect it. Yet I hope!" 
 
 Already Mrs. Gay lor had been invited, and had accepted; 
 but Angela was not thinking of Mrs. Gaylor at the moment, 
 and she was doing her best to keep Nick's thoughts from 
 his "boss's widow." He and "Mrs. May" went about 
 San Francisco together like two children on a holiday. 
 
 The place was a surprise to Angela. Her father's stories 
 had pictured for her a strange, wild city, of many wooden 
 houses, a tangle of steep streets running up hill and down 
 dale, a few great mansions, a thousand or more acres of 
 park in the making. But the San Francisco which he had 
 known as a boy had greatly changed, even before the fire. 
 Angela was aware of this, though she had not been able to 
 realize the vastness of the change; and though she knew 
 that the city was reborn since the epic tragedy which laid
 
 230 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 it low, she had expected to find it in a confused turmoil of 
 growing. The work done in six or seven years by men 
 who loved the City of the Golden Gate men who gave 
 blood and fortune for her, as men will for an adored woman 
 was almost incredible. "Rome was not built in a day" 
 she had often heard; but this great town of many hills, so 
 like a Rome of a new world, seemed to have risen from its 
 ashes by magic. 
 
 The place began to take on in her eyes a curious, startling 
 individuality. She began to think of the city not as a 
 town, but as a person. A woman, young, lovely, and 
 beloved, who had gone gaily to bed one night to dream of 
 her lovers, her jewels, and her triumphs. While she lay 
 smiling in her beauty sleep, this woman had been rudely 
 aroused by a cry of fire and shouts that warned her to fly. 
 Dazed, she dressed in wildest haste, putting on all the 
 gorgeous jewels she could find, for fear of losing them 
 forever, and wrapping herself in exquisite laces. But in 
 her hurry, she had been obliged to fling on some very 
 queer garments rather than not be clothed at all; and, 
 losing her head, had contrived to save a few worthless 
 things. All this the woman had done, laughing through her 
 fear of death, because nothing could conquer her brave 
 spirit and because she knew that, scared and destitute, 
 near to death, she would be rescued at last, loved better 
 than ever for her sufferings, and by and by would be more 
 regal than before. 
 
 Now, here was this vital creature, rewarded for her faith 
 by the worship and the prowess of her lovers. What 
 matter if she still wore some of the odd things she had 
 picked up in a hurry? Gowns better than she had ever
 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 231 
 
 boasted were being fashioned for her; and the contrast 
 between a tiara showing under a sunbonnet, a scarf of 
 rose-point covering a cotton belt, and diamond-buckled 
 shoes slipped on to torn stockings, made her beauty more 
 piquant, as she sat watching the work of her lovers, on her 
 throne by the sea. No wonder that the men who adored 
 such a woman were brave as she! generous and reckless 
 as she, and on fire with energy and courage. 
 
 "But the beautiful woman worked, too, to help her 
 lovers," Nick answered Angela's little allegory. "When 
 she was wounded, she said, 'Just give me a hand up and I 
 won't die. You shall have a big reward for all you do 
 only hurry, for I can't bear to be seen like this by any one 
 but you.'" 
 
 "And what did her lovers say?" Angela asked. 
 
 "We'll die for you, gladly. You have our hearts. 
 You can have our hearts' blood. ' ' And his eyes spoke 
 to her of himself. 
 
 The first day was tiring, nevertheless Angela went out 
 to Oakland that night to the Greek theatre, where a classic 
 tragedy was to be performed; and next day it was the 
 Presidio and Golden Gate Park. They lunched at the 
 Cliff House, and fed the barking sea-lions on the seal 
 rocks. Then came a few hours' rest: and Chinatown was 
 saved as a bonne-bouche for the evening. They dined in 
 the most stately and expensive of the Chinese restaurants 
 "no chop suey house," as their waiter said, where they 
 entered through the kitchen to see cakes being baked, and 
 pots of rice in the act of cooking. Upstairs the walls were 
 adorned with golden flowers, panel paintings by artists of
 
 232 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 China, and strange dragons, and Buddhas that nodded on 
 shelves. There were open-work screens, and tables and 
 chairs of black, carved teakwood. Angela would have been 
 aghast had she dreamed that the queer dinner, which she 
 liked and laughed at, cost Nick more than a hundred 
 dollars, but luckily she was not initiated in the rarity of 
 bird's-nest soup or other Chinese delicacies. 
 
 It was half-past eight when they finished dining, the 
 hour when Chinatown begins to be most lively, most 
 ready to amuse itself and, incidentally, strangers. Therein 
 lay the kernel of the nut, the blossom of the clove : that this 
 bit of the old, old East, inlaid in the heart of the new West 
 was not an "exhibition" like "Japan in London," but a 
 large, busy town, living for itself alone. The big posters 
 in Chinese characters, pasted on the walls, were for Chinese 
 eyes; not meant to amuse foreigners. The two or three 
 daily papers printed in Chinese, and filled with advertise- 
 ments, were for the Chinese; the bazaars, crammed with 
 strange Eastern things, were meant to attract women of 
 the Orient, little flitting creatures in embroidered silk 
 jackets and long, tight trousers, who passed and gazed, 
 with dark eyes aslant; let European women come, or 
 stay away, as they pleased, there were plenty of Chinese 
 husbands whose purses were full enough to keep the 
 merchants of Chinatown contented. The tiny, dressed-up 
 Oriental dolls boy and girls who strolled about with 
 pink balloons or butterfly kites, in the short intervals 
 between "Mellican" school and Chinese school, were not 
 baby-actors playing parts on the stage, but real flesh and 
 blood children, who had no idea that they were odd to 
 look at in their gay-coloured gowns and tiny caps.
 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 233 
 
 They did not even know that the streets through which 
 they toddled were any more strange than the " Mellican" 
 streets outside Chinatown, which they doubtless consid- 
 ered extremely dull, made up of huge gray and white build- 
 ings like mountains or prisons; whereas the tortuous ways 
 and blind alleys of their home-town were full of colour; 
 balconied house fronts, high and low, huddled together, 
 painted red or blue, and decorated with flowers, or shaped 
 like Chinese junks or toy castles and temples. It was all 
 new, of course, this town of theirs, since the fire; at least 
 what was above-ground and known to foreigners was new; 
 but it had been built in imitation of past glories. The 
 alleys were as blind, there were as many mysterious, hid- 
 den little courts, and packing-case houses and bazaars as- 
 ever, so that the children saw no difference; and already 
 a curious look of age, a drugged weariness, had fallen upon 
 the seven-year-old Chinatown. 
 
 Angela walked beside Nick through the lighted streets, 
 enchanted with the flowerlike lanterns that bloomed in 
 front of balconied restaurants or places of entertainment, 
 and with the crowding figures that shuffled silently by in 
 felt-soled slippers or high rocker shoes. Tiny, elaborate 
 women, young and old, slim youths with greeny-yellow 
 faces like full summer moons, little old men with hands 
 hidden in flowing sleeves, and dull eyes staring straight 
 ahead, were to her ghosts of the Far East, or creatures of a 
 fantastic dream from which she would soon awake. 
 
 When they had "done" the principal thoroughfares 
 and Angela had bought ivory boxes, jade bracelets, and a 
 silver bell collar for Timmy the cat, Nick said that the 
 time had come to join their guide. He had engaged a man
 
 234 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 supposed to know Chinatown inside and out, and the 
 rendezvous was at 9:30 in Portsmouth Square, the 
 "lungs of Chinatown" close to the memorial statue of 
 Robert Louis Stevenson. 
 
 It was quiet there, and pleasant in the starlight, faintly 
 gilded by the street lamps. The young moon of the sixth 
 month, which had sunk with the sun when Angela was in 
 Monterey, had not yet dropped beyond distant house roofs. 
 Its pearly profile looked down, surrounded by a clear- 
 cut ring, like the face of a pale saint seen through 
 the rose-window of a cathedral. Soon the guide came, 
 a little dark man with a Jewish face, a German name, 
 an American accent, and the polite manner of an 
 Oriental. 
 
 "What would you like the lady to see? " he asked. 
 
 "Everything you advise," said Nick. "We've dined in 
 a Chinese restaurant, and seen the things everybody sees. 
 Now we'll do a few barber shops and drug stores, and 
 anything else queer you can think of." 
 
 "There's an old fellow," suggested the guide, "who 
 used to be head musician in the big Chinese theatre. He 
 has a place of his own now, about four storeys under- 
 ground, where he tinkles on every sort of Chinese instru- 
 ment. Probably the lady would like to visit him. And 
 I know a house where children sing and dance. It's under- 
 ground too; and the poor little brutes, who go to two kinds 
 of schools till nine o'clock, are at it till midnight. But the 
 lady needn't mind. If she doesn't go, somebody else will, 
 so the kids are kept out of their beds all the same the 
 more money the merrier. You may get to see a Chinese 
 funeral too, though I ain't sure of one to-night
 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 235 
 
 "I guess the lady wouldn't enjoy butting in at a 
 funeral," said Nick. 
 
 "No, she wouldn't!" Angela added hastily. "But I 
 should love to see them playing fan-fan isn't that what 
 they call the gambling game? and and smoking 
 opium." 
 
 "Afraid the gambling can't be managed," said Mr. 
 Jacob Schermerhorn, sadly shaking his head, as if 
 the good days were gone. "But you'd like a little 
 curio store I'll take you to owned by an American 
 lady married to a Chinese, and wearing the costume. 
 They sell relics of the fire. And a joss-house is inter- 
 esting " 
 
 "But the opium smoking " Angela persisted, sus- 
 pecting that he meant to slide off the subject. 
 
 "That's not easy. Opium smoking's forbidden, 
 and " 
 
 But Angela grew obstinate. "I shan't feel I've seen 
 Chinatown unless I've seen that. The books say it 
 goes on." 
 
 " It does, on the quiet very quiet ! But they 're scared 
 to death of being found out. Besides " 
 
 "Besides what?" 
 
 
 
 " Well, ma 'am, your husband said when he engaged me 
 he thought it would be best not to try and get you into 
 any such place. It might hurt your feelings." 
 
 "Oh '."exclaimed Angela. Her "feelings," if not hurt, 
 were in commotion. "He he isn't my husband." 
 Then she wondered if it would not have been better to have 
 kept silence, and let the man think what he pleased. He 
 would never see or hear of her again. She laughed to show
 
 236 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Nick that she was not embarrassed, and then hurried on. 
 "I must see them smoking!" 
 
 "It would make you feel mighty sad, Mrs. May," said 
 Nick. "I went once, and it kind of haunted me. I 
 thought to myself, I'd never take a woman who had a 
 heart " 
 
 "I haven't a heart," laughed Angela, piqued. "I've 
 only a will. But you're my host, so I suppose I shall 
 have to give my will up to yours." 
 
 To her surprise, Nick did not yield. "We'd better 
 begin with the singing children," he said to Schermer- 
 horn, "and then we won't feel we're keeping them up 
 late." 
 
 The guide led them through Dupont Street, the street 
 of the bazaars, and another smaller, less noisy street, 
 where fat, long-gowned men, and women with gold clasps 
 in their glittering edifices of ebony hair, chaffered for dried 
 abalones, green sugarcane, and Chinese nuts. In base- 
 ments they could see through half-open doors at the 
 bottom of ladderlike steps, earnest-faced men, with long, 
 well-tended queues of hair, busily tonsuring sleepy clients. 
 Stooping merchants, with wrinkled brown masks like the 
 soft shells of those nuts which others sold, could be dis- 
 cerned in dim, tiny offices, poring through huge round 
 spectacles as they wrote with paint brushes, in volumes 
 apparently made of brown paper. Here and there, in a 
 badly lit shop with a greenish glass window, an old chemist 
 with the air of a wizard was measuring out for a blue- 
 coated customer an ounce of dried lizard flesh, some 
 powdered shark's eggs, or slivered horns of mountain 
 deer. These things would cure chills and fever; many
 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 237 
 
 other diseases, too, and best of all, win love denied, or 
 frighten away bad spirits. 
 
 By and by they turned out of the street into a dim 
 passage. This led into another, and so on, until Angela 
 lost count. But at last, when she began to think they 
 must be threading a maze, they plunged into a little 
 square court, where a lantern over one dark doorway 
 showed faintly the blacks of irregularly built houses. 
 Several small windows which looked upon the court were 
 barred, and there was a door with a grated peephole, 
 where Angela fancied that she caught the glint of eyes as 
 the lantern swung in a light breeze. But there was no such 
 grille in the low-browed door which the guide approached. 
 It stood ajar, and he pushed it open without knocking. 
 
 "Follow, please," he said, "it's better for me to go 
 first." And Angela followed, with Nick close behind her, 
 down a narrow flight of steps, more a ladder than a stair- 
 way, which descended abruptly from the threshold. One, 
 two, three flights there were, so steep that you had to go 
 slowly or tumble on your nose, and then down at the 
 bottom of the third ran a long passage, where a greenish 
 yellow dusk from some unseen lamp prevailed. The walls 
 were of unpainted wood, made of slips as thin as laths, and 
 several doors were roughly cut in it. At the end, one of 
 these doors gaped open, music of a peculiar shrillness 
 floated out. Also a smell as of musk and sandalwood 
 drifted through the crack, with small, fitful trails of smoke 
 or curling mist. 
 
 On the other side they were burning incense inside; a 
 Chinese man and a woman, two tiny children like gilded 
 idols, and three or four Europeans. The latter were
 
 238 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 evidently tourists, with a guide. They sat on a rough 
 bench, their backs to the door; and the Chinaman was 
 perched on a smaller, higher seat, in front of a rack hung 
 with several odd, brightly painted Chinese musical instru- 
 ments. He was playing solemnly and delicately on an 
 object like a guitar gone mad '- so thought Angela 
 bringing forth a singing sound, small and crystalline; but, 
 glancing over his shoulder as the new-comer appeared, at 
 once he snatched up another curious object, smiling at 
 Angela, as much as to say the change was a compliment 
 to her. The instrument was of the mandolin type, 
 covered with evil-looking snake-skin, and having only a 
 few strings, which the player's fingers touched lightly. 
 Each gave out a separate vibration, though all blended 
 together with a strange, alluring sweetness, and, under- 
 neath, Angela thought that she could hear, faintly, a 
 wicked impish voice hissing and chuckling, as if something 
 alive and vilely clever were curled up inside the instrument 
 perhaps the spirit of the snake whose skin had been 
 stolen. 
 
 The fat man nodded to the children who stood opposite 
 on a piece of matting, their silk-clad backs against the 
 wooden wall, which was pannelled with paintings, very 
 cheap, and not beautiful like those of the restaurant. But 
 the colours were harmonious; and on a low table stood a 
 blue dragon vase, holding in its mouth a single mariposa 
 lily, such as Angela had never seen before. Nick, standing 
 beside her, whispered the name of the white-and-crimson- 
 spotted butterfly flower, and she smiled her thanks, as the 
 Chinese woman gave the boy's cap a pat, and tweaked the 
 American ribbon bow which tied the queue of the little
 
 THE CITY OF ROMANCE 239 
 
 girl. Both children began to sing, keeping time with the 
 snake-skinned imp. 
 
 The boy, who looked about two feet in height no more 
 sang stolidly, with an unchanging countenance, and no 
 expression in the black beads which were his eyes. He 
 had on a primrose-coloured silk jacket, fastened across his 
 miniature chest with a loop. His blue pantaloons were 
 bound round his ankles, and his queue, mostly artificial, 
 was braided with scarlet. The girl, however still 
 smaller than her brother, or perhaps her fianct lifted 
 her voice emotionally, singing very high, with the notes 
 of a musical insect, or thin silver strings stretched tight. 
 Her eyes rolled, she appeared self-conscious, though 
 tired, and tinkled her silver bracelets and anklets. She saw 
 Angela enter, and admired the newcomer's pearly skin 
 and gold hair, which seemed to attract all the light in the 
 mean room. The child stared at her intently, taking in 
 every detail of the black hat and simple though perfect 
 dress. But the singing insect was not alone in her ad- 
 miration. 
 
 Suddenly Angela felt a touch on her arm. She turned, 
 and saw a Chinese girl, who might have been sixteen or 
 seventeen, smiling up at her. Angela smiled too, and the 
 girl kissed her own fingers, dimpling with pleasure, her 
 eyes sparkling. Then, with a nod of her head, and a ges- 
 ture of the hand, she invitingly indicated the half-open 
 door. 
 
 Angela glanced at Nick. He was intent on the children 
 and had not seen the girl. Again the pretty creature 
 nodded and beckoned, and Angela's curiosity was fired. 
 Apparently there was something which she alone was priv-
 
 240 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 ileged to see. She was amused and childishly flattered. 
 It would be fun, she thought, to steal away and give 
 Mr. Hilliard a surprise when he turned round to find her 
 gone. Then, just when he was beginning to be frightened, 
 she would come back and tell him her small adventure 
 whatever it might prove to be. 
 
 Cautiously she moved to the door, which the girl as 
 cautiously opened wider. Then, in a second, she was out 
 in the dusky passageway, beside her smiling guide.
 
 XX 
 
 THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL 
 
 "MELLICAN gell see ole Chineseman smokee opum 
 pipe?" the girl asked. 
 
 "Why, you speak English!" exclaimed Angela, for- 
 getting in her surprise that here was only a very little of 
 China set in the midst of a great deal of America. 
 
 "I go school one time," said the girl. "Dis times I 
 fo'get sometings. You come Chinese gell. You velly 
 pletty." 
 
 Angela laughed, and went, guilty but excited. This 
 was too good an adventure to miss. Schermerhorn must 
 know the inhabitants and habits of this place, and he 
 would guess what had become of her, when they found 
 her gone. "So are you very pretty," she smiled. 
 
 "Yes," replied the girl, in her little metallic voice. "I 
 like you. You like me. You give one dollah; I take you 
 see Chinese man smokes mo' 'n all oddeh mens. He velly 
 old knows ebelyting." 
 
 "Oh, I am to pay you a dollar! So it isn't all for love 
 of my beaux yeux," murmured Angela. But she gave the 
 sum, glad that she had spent most of her money in buying 
 jade and ivory, which now encumbered Nick's pockets. 
 The girl took first her dollar and next her gloved 
 hand. Then, opening one of the unpainted doors in 
 
 241
 
 242 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 the long, dusky passage, she led her companion into a 
 dark cellar. 
 
 "Where are you taking me?" Angela inquired, thinking 
 with sudden longing of the lighted room of the musician, 
 where Nick was perhaps beginning to look for her. 
 
 "Next-do'h house," replied the girl calmly; and Angela 
 would have been ashamed to draw back, even had curiosity 
 and a faint excitement not compelled her to go on. At 
 one end of the cellar was a wooden stairway, very steep, 
 going both up and down. She and her conductor went 
 down one flight, then along a short passage, then up some 
 steps, then down a few more. Angela was enjoying the 
 experience, but her joy was spiced with fear. 
 
 The two girls were hi a very strange house, much stranger, 
 Angela thought, than the one they had left. It was a 
 rabbit-warren of tiny, boxlike rooms, threaded with 
 narrow, labyrinthine passages, just wide enough for two 
 slim persons to pass side by side. The rough wooden walls 
 were neither painted nor stained, and the knot-holes were 
 stuffed with rags. Here and there a rude door was open, 
 hanging crookedly on its hinges, while the occupant talked 
 with a friend outside, or prepared for an expedition, laden 
 with kitchen utensils, coal and food, to the common 
 cooking-place of the rabbit colony a queer and dismal 
 set of iron shelves, long and narrow, sticking out from a 
 wall, and calling itself an oven. 
 
 Each door of each tiny room, which housed an indi- 
 vidual or a whole family, had the name of the owner upon 
 it, in Chinese characters, black and sprawling, on a red 
 label; and at one whose paper name-plate was peeling off, 
 Angela's companion stopped. "Li Hung Sun; we makee
 
 THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL 243 
 
 visit," she announced, and opened the door without 
 knocking. 
 
 Angela had seen furniture packing cases as big as that 
 room, and extremely like it. On one of the wooden walls, 
 above a bunk which took up nearly half the space, were a 
 rough shelf and a few cheap, Chinese panel pictures and 
 posters. Beside the bunk, and exactly the same height 
 from the floor with its ragged strip of old matting was a 
 box, in use as a table, covered with black oilcloth. On this 
 were grouped some toy chairs and chests, made of tiny 
 seashells pasted on cardboard; a vase with one flower in it; 
 a miniature mirror, and some fetish charms and photo- 
 graphs, evidently for sale. But on the bunk itself lay a 
 thing which made Angela forget all the surroundings. A 
 thin, stabbing pain shot through her heart, as if it had been 
 pricked with a needle. She was face to face with tragedy 
 in a form hardly human; and though her plump little guide 
 was smiling, Angela wished that she had listened to Nick's 
 advice. For here was something never to be forgotten, 
 something which would haunt her through years of dark 
 hours, dreaming or waking. She knew that the thought of 
 this box of a room and what she now saw in it would come 
 suddenly to darken bright moments, as the sun is all at 
 once overcast by a black thundercloud; and that in the 
 midst of some pleasure she would find herself wondering if 
 the idol-like figure still lived and suffered. 
 
 A little bag of bones and yellow skin that once had been 
 a man lay on the wooden bunk, whose hard surface was 
 softened only by a piece of matting. From the shrivelled 
 face a pair of eyes looked up; deep-set, utterly tragic, 
 utterly resigned. The face might have been on earth for
 
 244 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 sixty or seventy years perhaps. But the eyes were as old 
 as the world, neither bright nor dull, yet wise with a 
 terrible wisdom far removed from joy or sorrow. The 
 shrivelled shell of a body was a mere prison for a soul to 
 which torture and existence had become inseparable, and 
 almost equally unimportant. 
 
 "Oh, we ought not to come in!" Angela exclaimed in- 
 voluntarily, on the threshold of this secret. 
 
 The weary face faintly smiled, with a smile like a dim 
 gleam of light flickering over the features of a mummy. 
 
 "Come in. Many people come see me," said a voice as 
 old as the eyes, and sad with the fatal sadness that has 
 forgotten hope. It was a very small, weak voice, almost 
 like a voice heard at the other end of a long-distance 
 telephone, and it spoke excellent English. 
 
 Silently Angela obeyed; and seeing a broken, cane- 
 seated chair which she had not noticed before, dropped 
 into it as the low voice asked her to sit down. She was 
 not afraid now, but sadness gripped her. 
 
 "You wish see me smoke opium, lady?" the old man 
 asked, his tone monotonous, devoid of interest, his face a 
 mask. The light of a tallow candle flared into his eyes, 
 and wavered over his egg-shaped head, which was entirely 
 bald save for its queue. 
 
 "Oh, no," Angela answered, horrified, "I beg you 
 won't smoke for me!" 
 
 "Not for you," he said. "I smoke all times. I must 
 now. If not, I suffer too much. It is the smoking keeps 
 me alive. I cannot eat, or only a little. My throats shuts 
 up. But when I smoke, for a few minutes after I am 
 happy. Then I wait a while, and bimeby I smoke again."
 
 THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL 245 
 
 " Surely surely you can't smoke opium all day and 
 all night?" Angela murmured, her lips dry. She seemed 
 to know what he felt, and to feel it with him. It was a 
 dreadful sensation, that physical knowledge, racking her 
 nerves like a phase of nightmare. 
 
 "Nearly all day and all night, for I do not sleep much; 
 perhaps two hours in twenty -four. Once, a long time ago, 
 the opium made me sleep. I had nice dreams. Now it 
 makes me wide awake. But I do not suffer, only for a few 
 minutes. When it gets too bad, I begin again." 
 
 "What is it like the suffering?" Angela hah* whis- 
 pered. 
 
 " Cramps, and aching in my bones. Maybe you never 
 had a toothache you are too young. But it is like that 
 all over my body. I wish to die then. And I will before 
 long. The death will not hurt much if I keep on smoking. 
 My heart will stop, that is all. It will give me a chance to 
 begin again." 
 
 "In another world yes," said Angela. "But 
 couldn't you stop smoking? Take medicine of some sort 
 have treatment from a doctor " 
 
 "Too late, long time ago," he answered, with a calm, 
 fatal smile. But his eyes lit with a faint spark of anticipa- 
 tion, and his cheeks worked with a slight twitching of the 
 nerves, for, as he talked, in short sentences, he was quietly 
 rolling and cooking his dose of opium. Into a large pipe, 
 which looked to Angela like a queer, enormous flute with 
 a metal spout halfway down its length, he pushed a pill 
 he had rolled, ramming it in with a long pin, and cooking 
 it hi the flame of a small spirit lamp. He did not speak 
 again until he had pulled strenuously at the pipe a few
 
 246 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 times. Then he went on talking, his face unchanged, unless 
 it appeared rather fuller, less seamed with the wrinkles of 
 intense nerve strain. 
 
 "You see," he said, "that is all I do. I was in a good 
 deal of pain, but I am used to it. Now I'm contented for 
 a few minutes. While I have this happiness, I feel willing 
 to pay the price. But it is a big price. I warn the young 
 men who come to see me not to begin opium smoking. 
 It is so easy. You think you will try, to find out what it is 
 like; and then you will stop. But you do not stop. Four 
 weeks six weeks and it is finished for you. You are on 
 the road where I am. That was the way with me. It is 
 the way with every one who starts on that road and goes 
 not back before the turn. Better not start, for the dreams 
 are too good at first." 
 
 His resignation to the chains forged by himself seemed 
 to Angela the saddest part of all. He was beyond help, 
 and knew it, did not even think of it. 
 
 She had a strange burning behind her eyes, as she 
 listened, though she was not inclined to cry. 
 
 "It is awful," she whispered. "Such days such 
 nights such years. But you do not lie here always ? ' ' 
 
 "Most of the time," he answered, the little spark of 
 physical contentment beginning to dim in his eyes al- 
 ready. "I am very weak. I do not walk, except when I 
 go down the passage to.cook a little coffee once a day. Or 
 sometimes I crawl out in the sun. But soon I come back. 
 I can stand only a few minutes. I am too light in the head, 
 when I get on my feet. When I was young I was tall and 
 large. But a man shrinks small after the opium gets 
 him."
 
 THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL 247 
 
 "How you must regret!" Angela sighed. 
 
 "I do not know. Why regret when it is too late? I 
 regret that it is hard to find opium. It is forbidden 
 now, and very dear. I sell the cleanings of my pipe 
 the yenshee, we call it so I keep going." 
 
 "How can you bear to sell to others what has ruined 
 your life?" Angela could not help asking. 
 
 "I would do anything now to have opium," he said 
 calmly. " But it is the old smokers who smoke the yen- 
 shee, not the young ones. So I do no harm." 
 
 Angela sprang up, shuddering. "Is there nothing I 
 can do to help you?" she pleaded, her eyes turned from 
 him, as he began to cook another pill. 
 
 "You can buy something I sell. That will help. Do 
 you like this?" And he pointed to a little painted china 
 group of three monkeys, one of which covered its ears, 
 another its eyes, and the third its mouth. "You know 
 what it means? 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil/ 
 It is the motto of our people." 
 
 "Yes I'll buy that. It's a good motto," Angela 
 stammered. Taking up the little figures, she laid a five- 
 dollar gold piece on the box table, knowing only too well 
 what it would buy. 
 
 "You wish to see me smoke this other pipe?" and he 
 put it to his toothless mouth. 
 
 "No I can't bear it." 
 
 She pushed past the Chinese girl, hardly knowing what 
 she did. She felt faint and sick, as if she must have fresh 
 air. As her hand fumbled for the latch, the door was 
 pushed violently open, and Billiard came in, with Scher- 
 merhorn at his back.
 
 248 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 " Thank Heaven ! " Nick stammered. He was very pale. 
 
 "You gave us a pretty bad scare, Miss," added the man, 
 who had been informed that Nick was "not her husband." 
 
 " Lucky I thought of this house, and this old chap." 
 
 "But there was no danger," Angela defended herself. 
 "Nothing could have happened." 
 
 "Most anything can happen in Chinatown," mum- 
 bled Scheraierhorn. "Did you ever read a story by 
 Norris called The Third Circle ?" 
 
 "Not yet," said Angela. "I bought the book, 
 but " 
 
 "Well, read that story when you get home to-night, 
 Miss, and maybe you'll know what your young gentle- 
 man here went through." 
 
 Her "young gentleman!" But Angela did not smile. 
 A thing would have had to be very funny to strike her as 
 laughable just then. 
 
 "No, don't read it to-night," said Nick. "Wait 
 till another time." 
 
 " Will you forgive me? " she asked, looking at him. " I'm 
 so^ry. I didn't suppose you'd mind much." 
 
 "I was in Hades for a few minutes, " said Nick, 
 hastily qualifying the remark he had been about to make.
 
 XXI 
 "WHO IS MRS. MAY?" 
 
 ONLY one letter had Nick written to Carmen Gaylor 
 the one he had promised to write, telling her of his arrival 
 in New York; that he was "pretty lonely, and didn't 
 know how long he could stand for seeing no home sights.'* 
 It never occurred to him to write again; and Carmen was 
 not surprised at his remissness. She knew that Nick was 
 not the sort of man who likes to write letters or can put 
 his feelings upon paper. But when she received her 
 invitation to visit Rushing River Camp, she could have 
 sung for joy. 
 
 "We are hoping that an old friend of yours, Mr. Nickson 
 Hilliard, may be with us when you come; as well as Miss 
 Dene, the authoress," Mrs. Harland said in her note. 
 And Carmen believed that she had Hilliard to thank for the 
 compliment paid her by Falconer and his sister. 
 
 She knew that he had met Falconer and admired him; 
 and putting two and two together, she fancied that al- 
 ready Nick must have come West, meaning to surprise 
 her by his sudden appearance; that he had fallen in with 
 Mrs. Harland and Falconer on the journey, perhaps 
 been invited by them, and suggested, or at least hinted, 
 that she should be asked to join the house-party at the 
 same time. 
 
 249
 
 250 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Otherwise, I don't believe they'd ever have thought of 
 me," she told herself, with a humility which would have 
 had an element of sulkiness if she had not been half out 
 of her wits with happiness over the idea that Nick was 
 near, and wanting her. If he had not wanted her, he 
 would not have schemed to have her with him at Rushing 
 River Camp. 
 
 All the anxieties and suspicions of the past weeks were 
 forgotten. She telegraphed her acceptance, and began 
 thinking what to wear during the visit. She admitted in 
 her mind that Mrs. Harland was a "bigger swell" than 
 she, and knew more of the world and Society. But she 
 determined that the hostess should not outdo her guest in 
 the way of "smart" dresses, hats, and jewellery. 
 
 Carmen broke her journey at San Francisco, staying 
 there two days at the Palace Hotel. On the first of these 
 days, as it happened, Nick and Angela motored to Mount 
 Hamilton, and stayed late at the Lick Observatory. On 
 the second day they went to Mount Tamalpais, lunching 
 at the delightful "tavern" on the mountain- top, and 
 rushing madly down the wondrous steeps at sunset, hi the 
 little "gravity car" guided by the landlord. 
 
 So it was that Carmen got no chance glimpse of the 
 two together, and had no suspicion that in the hotel regis- 
 ter of the St. Francis was inscribed the name of Nickson 
 Hilliard. She shopped contentedly, and enjoyed looking 
 at the prettily dressed women, because she saw none whom 
 she thought as good-looking as herself. Then, on the 
 second evening, just as Angela and Nick were tearing down 
 the rocky height known familiarly to San Francisco as 
 "the mountain," Carmen left for Shasta Springs.
 
 "WHO IS MRS. MAY?" 251 
 
 It was early next morning after the long journey north, 
 that the white pinnacle of Mount Shasta appeared floating 
 in the sky above dark pines, and the rushing stream of the 
 Sacramento, fed by eternal snows. But Carmen hardly 
 glanced out of her stateroom window at the hovering 
 white glory, though her maid mentioned that Shasta was 
 in sight. Mrs. Harland and Falconer were both coming to 
 meet her at the Springs station, and would motor her to 
 Rushing River Camp by the fifty-mile road over the 
 mountains. Carmen hoped that Nick might be with them, 
 though nothing had been said about him in the telegram 
 they had sent. In any case, her one care was to be beauti- 
 ful after the night journey. She took no interest in moun- 
 tains and rivers. Her whole soul was concentrated upon 
 the freshness of her complexion and the angle of the mauve 
 hat on her dark waved hair. Never a good sleeper, she 
 had been too feverish at the prospect of seeing Nick to do 
 more than doze off for a few minutes in her berth; con- 
 sequently, there were annoying brown shadows under her 
 eyes, and her cheeks looked a little sallow; but Mariette 
 was an accomplished maid, who had been with Carmen 
 ever since the old theatrical days, and when Mrs. Gaylor 
 was ready to leave her stateroom at Shasta Springs station 
 she looked as bright-eyed and rosy as if she had slept with- 
 out dreaming. This effect was partly due to liquid rouge 
 and bismuth, but largely to happy excitement a 
 woman's greatest beautifier. 
 
 Her heart was beating fast under embroidered, dove- 
 coloured chiffon and pale gray Shantung, a dress too 
 elaborate for a railway journey; and she had no eyes for 
 the fairylike greenness of the place, the mountain-side
 
 252 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 shadowed by tall trees, or rocks clothed in delicate ferns 
 and spouting forth white cascades. The full, rich summer 
 she had left at home in the South was early spring in the 
 cool North. The earth was like a bride, displaying her 
 trousseau of lace, fall after fall of it, on green velvet 
 cushions, and the gold of her dowry, the splendour of her 
 wedding gifts, in a riot of flowers. No money corned in 
 mints could buy diamonds such as this bride had been 
 given by her mother Nature; diamonds flashing in river 
 and cascade upon cascade. But Carmen Gaylor had no 
 eyes for them. She had merely a pleasant impression that 
 Shasta Springs seemed to be a pretty place, and no wonder 
 it was popular with millionaires, who built themselves 
 houses up there on the height, in the forest! But it was 
 only a passing thought, as he alighted from the train in the 
 welcoming music of many waters, which she hardly heard. 
 Her attention was centred on picking out Mrs. Harland and 
 Falconer among the people who were waiting to meet 
 friends, and on seeing whether Nick Hilliard was with them. 
 
 There was a crowd on the platform. Pretty "summer 
 girls" with bare heads, over which they held parasols of 
 bright green, or rose-red, that threw charming lights and 
 shadows on their tanned faces: brown young men in khaki 
 knickerbockers, shaking hands with paler men just coming 
 from town, and little children in white, laughing at sight of 
 arriving "daddies." 
 
 Soon Falconer, towering over most others, appeared 
 with his sister by his side, and Carmen was pleased to see 
 that Mrs. Harland's clothes could not compare with hers. 
 Having no idea of suiting her costume to the country, she 
 thought herself infinitely preferable in her Paris gown to
 
 "WHO IS MRS. MAY?" 253 
 
 Mrs. Borland in a cotton frock, and shady straw hat. But 
 no Nick was visible, and Carmen's pleasure was dashed. 
 
 The brother and sister met her cordially, took her to 
 look at the bubbling spring in its kiosk, and then up the 
 height on the scenic railway. Presently they landed on the 
 level of the parklike plateau, where a big hotel and its 
 attendant cottages were visible, with many golden dolo- 
 mitic peaks and great white Shasta itself peeping through 
 the trees. Still nothing had been said about Nick; and 
 Carmen dared not ask. She feared some disappoint- 
 ment, and shrank from the blow. 
 
 Mariette had brought coffee to her mistress's stateroom 
 very early, but Carmen was not averse to the suggestion 
 of breakfast at the hotel before motoring over the moun- 
 tains. As they ate, they talked of impersonal things: the 
 colony under the trees; the making of the mountain road; 
 and Falconer told how Mount Shasta long ago named 
 by Indians " Iska, the White" was the abode of the 
 Great Spirit; and how, in old, old times, before the Indians, 
 the sole inhabitants of the country were grizzly bears. 
 Carmen listened to the unfolding of the tale into a fantastic 
 love-story, saying, "Oh!" or "How interesting!" at polite 
 intervals. Always she asked herself, "Where's Nick? 
 Hasn't he come yet? Is it possible he's been prevented 
 from coming at all?" She tried to brace herself against 
 disappointment and not show that she cared, but she 
 turned red and white when Mrs. Harland said at last, 
 " We're so sorry Mr. Hilliard couldn't be with us. We 
 both like him so much, and it would have been very nice 
 to have him too, while you are at Rushing River Camp." 
 
 " Oh, he couldn't come ! " Carmen echoed dully.
 
 254 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "No. Isn't it too bad? We thought you'd know 
 that he might have written " 
 
 "Perhaps he has, and I've missed the letter," Carmen 
 broke in, hating to let these strangers think her slighted 
 by Hilliard. " I've been in San Francisco two days. 
 But where is he? On his way home?" 
 
 "I don't quite know," replied Mrs. Harland, rather 
 evasively, it seemed. And then she changed the subject. 
 
 Carmen had never seen anything like that winding road 
 over the mountains, with the white, phantom glimpses of 
 Shasta at every forest turning. Falconer's big automo- 
 bile, which he kept at the "Camp," ran up the steep 
 gradients without appearing to know that they existed, 
 and Carmen strove to be cheerful, to look as if she were 
 enjoying the drive. But her heart was a lump of ice, 
 though she talked and laughed a great deal, telling Mrs. 
 Harland about the rich or important people she knew, 
 instead of drinking in the sweet air, and giving her eyes to 
 the wild loveliness. It was bad enough that Nick was 
 not coming, but the air of reserve or uneasiness with which 
 Mrs. Harland had said, "I don't quite know," touched the 
 situation with mystery. She realized that, if there were 
 anything to hide, she would not find it out from her host 
 or hostess; but when on the veranda of the glorified log- 
 house overhanging the river she saw Theo Dene, Carmen 
 instantly said to herself with conviction, "If she knows, 
 I'll get it out of her!" 
 
 And seeing Miss Dene at Rushing River Camp she was 
 almost inclined to be glad that Nick was not there. She 
 admired Theo's splendid red hair and dazzling skin. She 
 saw that, though the young woman's clothes were simple,
 
 "WHO IS MRS. MAY?" 255 
 
 their simplicity was Parisian and expensive; and she saw 
 also that Theo was a flirt a "man-eater," as she put it 
 to herself, her dark eyes meeting the green eyes in a first 
 understanding glance. 
 
 Miss Dene was far from unwilling to be pumped. In 
 fact, she meant to be pumped; and that afternoon, while 
 Mrs. Harland was writing letters and Falconer was with 
 his secretary, whom he could not escape even in the 
 country, she invited Mrs. Gaylor to sit with her on the 
 broad veranda, beneath which the river ran singing a 
 never-ending song. 
 
 The two pretty women, the one dark the other fair, made 
 a charming picture, and neither was oblivious of the fact; 
 but it would not have occurred to Carmen that her self- 
 appreciation might be put into words. However, she 
 laughed when Theo said: 
 
 "What a shame there aren't any men to admire us! 
 We're both looking too adorable, aren't we? I should 
 love to snapshot you in that Indian hammock, though the 
 picture would lose a lot without colour. And it's very un- 
 kind of you if you wouldn't like to have a picture of me 
 in my green rocking-chair on the scarlet rug." 
 
 This gave Carmen a chance to touch upon the subject 
 in her heart without, as she thought, arousing any suspicion. 
 
 "You look awfully pretty," she said; "and this balcony 
 is lovely, hanging over the river. It's quite different from 
 my home; though mine's nice, too. And we have got 
 one man Mr. Falconer." 
 
 "He's engaged," said Theo. 
 
 "Oh, is he? I didn't know that. Well, and Mr. 
 Hilliard will come, perhaps. Have you met him?"
 
 56 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Yes," replied Theo promptly; "at Santa Barbara. 
 He was motoring with Mrs. May. I thought him one of 
 the handsomest men I ever saw. But I'm afraid he isn't 
 coming. She isn't either of course." 
 
 Carmen's face crimsoned; then her colour died away 
 and left her sickly white, all but the little pink spots of 
 rouge she had put on in the morning. 
 
 " Motoring with Mrs. May ! " she repeated, harshly, then 
 controlled her voice by a violent effort. "Was Mrs. May 
 expected here?" 
 
 " Was expected," Theo echoed with emphasis. She was 
 enjoying herself thoroughly; literally enjoying "herself." 
 This was almost as good as if Hilliard had not refused 
 the invitation and Angela had not basely slipped out of 
 the engagement after practically accepting. "She won't 
 come. I suppose she thinks she's having more fun where 
 she is. Though if Mr. Hilliard had come I haven't the 
 ghost of a doubt that she would. Do you know Mr. 
 Hilliard well?" 
 
 This in a tone as innocent as that of a little child talking 
 of its dolls. 
 
 "Pretty well," answered Carmen, moistening her lips. 
 "Who is Mrs. May? I heard of her once. She's a friend 
 of the Morehouses." 
 
 "She's a new importation," replied Theo lightly. "So 
 far as I can make out, she and Mr. Hilliard met in New 
 York." 
 
 "Is she pretty?" 
 
 "Yes, very. Fair hair and gray eyes that look dark. 
 Mourning is becoming to her." 
 
 "Is she a widow?"
 
 "WHO IS MRS. MAY?" 257 
 
 "She gives that impression," Miss Dene smiled. 
 This Carmen Gaylor was like a beautiful, fiery thunder- 
 cloud. Teasing her was delightful. Theo felt as if she 
 were in a play. It was a dreadful waste of good material 
 not to have an audience. But she would "use the scene" 
 afterward. She remembered hearing a great actress tell 
 how she visited hospitals for consumptives, and even ran 
 up to Davos one winter, when she was preparing to play 
 La Dame aux Camelias. Theo would have done all that 
 if she had been an actress. She was fond of realism in 
 every form, and did not stick at gruesomeness. 
 
 "A grass widow?" exclaimed Carmen eagerly. 
 
 Theo shrugged her shoulders. "Really, I can't tell 
 you." 
 
 Carmen supposed that she knew little of Mrs. May, and 
 had met her for the first time at Santa Barbara with Nick. 
 With Nick motoring! The thought gave Carmen a 
 strange sensation, as if her blood had turned to little cold, 
 sharp crystals freezing in her veins. 
 
 "Not very young, I suppose?" she hazarded, her lips 
 so dry that she had to touch them with her tongue. But 
 that was dry, too. 
 
 "Oh, about twenty-three or four, and looks nineteen." 
 
 There was no hope, then! Nick was with a woman, 
 beautiful, young, presumably a widow, and evidently in 
 love with him, as Miss Dene said that she would be here 
 at Rushing River Camp if Nick had come. A deadly sick- 
 ness caught Carmen by the throat. Her love for Nick was 
 one with her life, and had been for years. Always she had 
 believed that some day she would be happy with Nick, 
 would have him for her own. Anything else would be im-
 
 258 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 possible too bad to be true. Even when he went East 
 without asking her to marry him, though she was free, she 
 had assured herself that he loved her. Had he not as much 
 as said that the anniversary of her husband's death was 
 not a lucky night to choose for love-making? Carmen had 
 made certain that she was the only woman in Nick's life; 
 and he had laughed when she hinted that "some lovely 
 lady" might persuade him to stay in New York. 
 
 "Where is Mrs. May now?" she asked sharply, past 
 caring much whether or no Miss Dene saw her agony. 
 
 "In San Francisco unless she's gone to the Yosemite 
 Valley with Mr. Billiard." 
 
 "With him! Why should she go everywhere with 
 him?" 
 
 Theo laughed. " Because she likes his society, I suppose , 
 and he likes hers. He is supposed to be her unpaid, ama- 
 teur guide, I believe, and she trots her maid about with her, 
 to play propriety. Also a cat. Don't you think a black 
 cat a charmingly original chaperon?" 
 
 Carmen did not answer. Anguish and rage in her heart 
 were like vitriol dashed on a raw wound. No wonder Nick 
 had not written ! And she had been happy, and trusting, 
 while he forgot his debt of gratitude, and ignoring her 
 existence, travelled about the country with another woman- 
 Only this morning Carmen had dreamed of meeting him 
 here, and that he had asked for her invitation, as a favour 
 to himself. She could have screamed, and torn her flesh, in 
 agony. She suffered too much. Some one else would 
 have to pay for this ! Nick would have to pay, and that 
 woman, that love pirate sailing from strange seas to steal 
 the treasure of others.
 
 "WHO IS MRS. MAY?" 259 
 
 Her one uncontrollable impulse was to go and find them 
 both, to do something to part them, she did not know what 
 yet, but inspiration would come. She felt unable to bear 
 any delay. Somehow, she must find an excuse to get away 
 from this place. She would have to go San Francisco, 
 or perhaps even to the Yosemite Valley, and find Nick and 
 the woman together. 
 
 It occurred to her that she might contrive to telegraph 
 to Simeon Harp, telling him to wire her that something had 
 gone wrong on the ranch, that she must return home at 
 once. Mariette could find out how to send telegrams from 
 here there was sure to be a way and get the message 
 off in secret. 
 
 That night a telegram came for Mrs. Gaylor, anounc- 
 ing that there had been a fire on the ranch. She was needed 
 at home. She showed the bit of paper to Mrs. Har- 
 land and Falconer, and there was much sympathy and 
 regret that her visit must be broken short. 
 
 Next morning she left, having been but twenty-four 
 hours at Rushing River Camp. And late that night, 
 she arrived in San Francisco. But she was in no hurry to 
 obey the summons from the Gaylor ranch.
 
 XXII 
 THE BOX OF MYSTERY 
 
 AGAIN Angela was expecting Hilliard. They were to 
 dine, and then she and Nick and Kate and the cat were 
 going by tram to El Porto, the gate of the Yosemite 
 Valley. Angela was waiting in her sitting-room, as on that 
 first evening there, when she had changed one decision for 
 another all in a moment; but now she was in travelling 
 dress, and a week had passed since that other night. It 
 had been, perhaps, the happiest week of her life; but the 
 week to which she was looking forward would be happier 
 still. Afterward, of course, there would be an end. For 
 the end must come. She was clear-sighted enough to 
 realize that. 
 
 As she thought these things and quickly put away the 
 thoughts, since nothing must spoil this hour there was 
 a rap at the door, and she went to throw it open, confident 
 that she would see Nick smiling at her, saying in his nice 
 voice, "Well, are you ready?" 
 
 But it was not Nick. A bellboy of the hotel had brought 
 up a large cardboard box which had arrived by post. The 
 address was printed: "Mrs. May, Fairmont Hotel, San 
 Francisco," and there were several stamps upon it; but 
 Angela could not make out the postmark. She found a 
 pair of scissors and cut the string. The box was tightly 
 
 260
 
 THE BOX OF MYSTERY 261 
 
 packed with a quantity of beautiful foliage, lovely leaves 
 shaped like oak leaves, and of bright autumn colours, 
 purple, gold, and crimson, though spring had hardly 
 turned to summer. 
 
 She plunged her hands into the box, lifting out the 
 gorgeous mass, looking for a card or note, but finding none. 
 It was a pity that this- mysterious gift had arrived just as 
 she was going away. However, she was keeping on her 
 rooms, and would leave instructions with the chambermaid 
 to take great care of the beauties. 
 
 Some one else was tapping at the door now, and this time 
 it was Nick. Angela's hands overflowed with their bril- 
 liant burden as she called aloud, "Come in!" and he came 
 with the very words she had expected: "Well, are you 
 ready?" 
 
 But they died on his lips, and it seemed to her, in the 
 waning light, that his face grew pale. 
 
 "Drop that stuff, quick, Mrs. May!" 
 
 He flung the words at her, and Angela, bewildered and 
 amazed, threw down the coloured leaves as if a tarantula 
 hid among them. 
 
 "Have you got any ammonia?" Nick asked sharply. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Go wash your hands in it while I use your telephone. 
 Don't be frightened, but that's poison-oak, and I want to 
 prevent it from hurting you." 
 
 "Can it kill me? " Her face quivered. 
 
 "No. And it shan't do you any harm if I can help it. 
 But be quick as you can. Keep your hands in the basin 
 till I get what I'm sending out for." 
 
 Without another word Angela ran into the next room,
 
 262 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 and so to the bath. As she poured ammonia into the mar- 
 ble basin, feeling a little faint, she could hear Nick's voice 
 at the telephone: "Send to the nearest drug store for 
 some gamgee tissue, a bundle of lint, and a pint bottle of 
 lime-water. This is a hurry call." 
 
 Angela's heart was thumping. It was horrible that 
 there should be some one in the world a lurking, myste- 
 rious some one who planned in secret to do her dreadful 
 harm. The incident seemed unreal. Whom did she know, 
 on this side of the world, who could hate her so bitterly? 
 She was afraid, as of eyes that she could not see, staring 
 through the dark. 
 
 Nick called from the sitting-room: "How do you feel? 
 Are you all right? " And when she answered " Yes," tried 
 to reassure her. It began to look as if there were much to 
 fear. Luckily he had come in time. Was she sure she 
 hadn't held the leaves near her face? No. Then she might 
 hope that there would be no trouble now. Already he had 
 bundled the bunch of fire into a newspaper and it had been 
 taken out of the room to be destroyed, like a wicked witch. 
 Luckily there were people who could touch poison-oak 
 and suffer no harm. Nick told Angela he "felt in his 
 bones" that no evil thing could have power over her. 
 
 Soon, almost before she could have believed it possible, 
 the messenger arrived with a strange assortment of packets 
 from the chemist. Nick shouted that all was ready, and 
 she went back to the sitting-room, her hands dripping 
 ammonia. Kate had been summoned, and having just 
 appeared, was about to empty a large flower bowl, which 
 Nick had ordered her to wash. The Irish girl was pale, and 
 looked dazed. She knew nothing yet of what had hap-
 
 THE BOX OF MYSTERY 263 
 
 pened, but guessed at some mysterious accident to her 
 mistress. 
 
 A great bouquet of roses which Nick had sent that morn- 
 ing now lay on a side table, and into the flower bowl they 
 had adorned he poured the lime-water. In this he soaked 
 the gamgee tissue (Angela had never heard of the stuff 
 before) , and bade her hold out both hands. Then he bound 
 them quickly and skilfully, intent on what he was doing, 
 though his head was bent closer to Angela's than it had 
 ever been before, and the fragrance of her hair was sweet, 
 as in his dreams of angels. As for her, she felt a childlike 
 confidence in his ability to cure her, to save her from harm. 
 
 Over the tissue, wet with lime-water, Nick wrapped 
 bandages of lint; and the operation finished, Angela was 
 as helpless as if she had pulled on a pair of tight, thick 
 gloves whose fingers would not bend. 
 
 "Does this mean that we aren't to go to-night?" she 
 asked mournfully. 
 
 "I hope it doesn't mean that. But we can't be dead 
 certain yet," answered Nick. He looked at her searchingly, 
 his face drawn and anxious; but it relaxed as if he were 
 suddenly relieved from some great strain as his eyes 
 travelled over the smooth, pure features, and met her 
 questioning gaze at last with assurance. 
 
 "If we are not certain soon, it will be too late to start, 
 and I can't bear to put off going. I'm looking forward to 
 the trip so much!" she said. "Shall we dine here? 
 You'll have to feed me, I'm afraid." She laughed; but 
 a slow flush crept up to Nick's forehead. 
 
 "Would you let me?" 
 
 "Yes. Why not? If you don't mind. Anything
 
 264 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 rather than miss our train unless some horrid symptoms 
 are coming on that you haven't the courage to tell me 
 about. Ring for dinner, Kate. And you can go and have 
 yours. We'll do everything exactly as if we expected to 
 start." 
 
 "Sure, ma'am, don't make me leave the room till I've 
 heard what Mr. Hijliard has to say. I'm that worried till 
 I know the worst," Kate pleaded. 
 
 Angela smiled. "I'm just beginning to learn," she said, 
 "that it's a mistake to think of the worst. I used to make 
 a point of doing it, and it generally happened. Now I 
 expect the best ! " She spoke to Kate, and looked at Nick. 
 "But tell me what poison-oak can do." 
 
 Nick shivered. For an instant, a picture of that adored 
 young face hideously disfigured turned him sick. And 
 even her little white hands no, it did not bear thinking 
 of! But he controlled himself and tried to speak coolly. 
 
 "Why, it affects some people so their faces and hands 
 swell up, and and get red and spotted. Of course, that 
 doesn't last many days: but it isn't nice while it does 
 last, and I couldn't bear the thought of its happening 
 to you. I just couldn't bear it ! It isn't going to happen, 
 though, " he added hastily, seeing the colour leave her lips. 
 " By this time you'd have begun to feel mighty bad, if you 
 were in for trouble. You can't be easy to affect, for if you 
 were, the poison might have gone to your face, without 
 your even touching the leaves. Your hands don't burn, 
 do they?" 
 
 "Only a little from the ammonia." 
 
 " That saved them. . If you feel all right in an hour more, 
 you can have the bandages off, and the danger'!! be over
 
 THE BOX OF MYSTERY 265 
 
 for good. Then we can start, unless the shock's been too 
 much for you?" 
 
 "I'm too bewildered to be shocked," said Angela. 
 "Who could have played such a horrid practical joke on 
 me? It' a little bit like in a ridiculous way the play 
 of Adrienne Lecouvreur, where a woman is poisoned by a 
 bouquet of flowers sent by a jealous rival. Only I haven't 
 a jealous rival!" 
 
 Nick's face hardened. " I'm going to find out who did 
 send the stuff. While you were in the other room I was 
 looking at the wrapper of the box. I can't make out the 
 postmark; but I reckon there are those who can, and I 
 won't rest till I know." 
 
 "What can you do to find out?" asked Angela. 
 
 "I can put the best detective in San Francisco on to the 
 job. He shall follow up the clues like a bloodhound, and 
 hang on to them when he's got 'em, like a bulldog." 
 
 "Oh, but don't let's put off our journey!" Angela 
 exclaimed. " I feel, if we do that, we'll never go. It has 
 
 always " she half-whispered, "seemed too good to 
 
 come true/' 
 
 "I'd rather do 'most anything than put off the trip," 
 said Nick. " But there's time for everything. We don't 
 leave the hotel till after nine. Dinner won't be ready for 
 a bit; and if you'll let me, I'll go out now and see a man 
 I've heard of a very smart detective." 
 
 But Angela begged him to wait. She hated the thought 
 of being left alone till she was sure that no ill effect need be 
 feared from the poison. So Nick stayed, not unwillingly, 
 and a simple dinner was ordered in haste. 
 
 Kate was sure that after what had happened she would
 
 266 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 have no appetite for dinner; but, like a true Irish girl, 
 she was romantic to the core of her heart; and because 
 she was deeply in love with her Tun, she had the "seeing 
 eye" which showed her clearly what was hi Nick Hilliard's 
 heart for Angela. 
 
 Of course, he was not good enough for her lady; no man 
 could be. But Kate had a sneaking kindness for Nick, 
 the splendid giver of the golden bag, and would not, by 
 offering her services as cutter-up-of-food for the queen, 
 rob him of the privilege. 
 
 So Kate slipped out unobtrusively, and the privilege 
 in question became Nick's. It was a joy, even a delirious 
 joy, but it was also an ordeal; for as he fed her, Angela 
 smiled at him. Each time that he proffered a spoonful of 
 soup or a morsel of chicken she met his gaze with laughing 
 eyes, roguish, under dark lashes, as the eyes of a child. 
 The difficulty when this happened, as it did constantly, 
 was to keep hands steady and mind calm, as if for the per- 
 formance of a delicate surgical operation; because to 
 drop a thing, or ami it wrongly, would have been black 
 disgrace. And to ensure perfection of aim, attention 
 must be concentrated upon the lady's lips as she opened 
 them to receive supplies. It was to watch the unfolding 
 of a rosebud into a rose while forbidden to touch the 
 rose. And even monks of the severest brotherhoods may 
 pluck the flowers that grow beside their cloisters. 
 
 Nick did not leave Angela until Kate had come back; 
 then he and the Irish girl together unwound the bandages. 
 There was a moment of suspense, but the hands were 
 satin-smooth. 
 
 "It seems to be written that you shall save me always
 
 THE BOX OF MYSTERY 267 
 
 from horrors ever since the night of the burglar," Angela 
 said, when Kate had gone to the next room to dispose of 
 the lint. "I shall be like a child learning to walk alone 
 when my journeyings with you come to an end." 
 
 There was his chance to say, "Must they come to an 
 end?" But Kate was near; and besides, a snub from 
 Angela might stop the "journeyings" then and there. 
 So he answered with a mere compliment, as any man 
 may, meaning nothing at all or a great deal. To save 
 her from danger, it was worth while to have been born, 
 he said. And he remembered, as he had remembered many 
 times, how clear had been the call he had heard to go 
 East; a call like a voice in his ears, crying, "Nick, I 
 want you. Come." He was tempted to be superstitious, 
 and to believe that unconsciously, in some mysterious 
 way, Angela had summoned him to be her knight. To be 
 even more, perhaps, in the end. Who could tell yet? 
 
 It was a good sign, at all events, that she was reluctant 
 to give up the trip; and Nick decided not to risk confiding 
 in the police. Put the affair of the poison-oak into their 
 hands, and they would lasso every one concerned, with 
 yards of red tape ! In that case, he and Mrs. May might 
 be detained in San Francisco. No! A private detective 
 would do the trick; and Nick had the name of one pigeon- 
 holed in his brain: Max Wisler, a shrewd fellow, once 
 employed with success by "old Grizzly Gaylor" when 
 there had been a leakage of money and vanishing of cattle 
 on the ranch. Nick went in search of Max Wisler now, in a 
 taxi, and found him at the old address; a queer little 
 frame house, in a part of San Francisco which had been 
 left untouched by the great fire.
 
 268 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Wisler was at home, and remembered Hilliard. He was 
 fair and fat, with a manner somewhat cold; unlit by 
 enthusiasm; yet as he listened a gleam flashed out from 
 his carefully controlled gray eyes, which hinted at hidden 
 fires. He heard Nick to the end of the story, in silence, 
 playing always with the leaves of a book which he had 
 been reading a volume of Fenimore Cooper's. Still he 
 went on fingering the pages for a minute, when Hilliard 
 paused expecting questions. Then he looked up suddenly, 
 seeming literally to catch Nick's eye and hold it by 
 force. 
 
 "What woman is jealous of this lady Mrs. May?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "I don't think she knows any woman in California, 
 except Mrs. Falconer's sister and a Miss Dene from 
 England, an authoress who is travelling about with Mrs. 
 Harland in Falconer's car." 
 
 "Ah! Mrs. Harland's out of the running. And that 
 Miss Dene's gone East. I happened to see her start, 
 yesterday. She had a collection of people giving her a 
 send-off. Of course, she could have employed some one 
 else to do the job, and keep out of the way herself But 
 I guess we must look further. Now see here, Mr. Hilliard, 
 a patient has got to be frank with his doctor if the doctor's 
 to do any good. Are you engaged to marry Mrs. Gaylor, 
 the widow of my old client? " 
 
 "Good Lord, no!" exclaimed Nick, scarlet to his fore- 
 head. "Such an idea never entered my head." 
 
 "Humph! Rumour's wrong, then. But that isn't to 
 say it never entered her head. Does she know Mrs. May? " 
 
 "No," said Nick. "Surely you're not hinting -
 
 THE BOX OF MYSTERY 269- 
 
 "I'm not hinting anything. I'm feeling my way in the 
 dark." 
 
 "It isn't quite dark. You've got the paper that was 
 round the box. I saw you looking at it, through a mag- 
 nifying glass, just now." 
 
 "That postmark means the longest way round 
 that we can take. Do you think any one with an 
 ounce I of brains would send poison from a place where 
 she or he, if you like was known? No. She 
 or he would go a long way, and a roundabout 
 way. Or send a trusted messenger. Tell me straight, 
 Mr. Hilliard, has Mrs. Gaylor got in her employ a confi- 
 dential maid, or man?" 
 
 Nick, distressed and embarrassed, angry with the de- 
 tective, yet unwilling to offend and put him off his work, 
 knew not what to answer. There was Simeon Harp, of 
 course, who would do anything for Carmen. But Nick 
 could not, would not, play into Wisler's hands by mention- 
 ing the name of Harp, or telling of the old man's doglike 
 devotion to his mistress. It was a detestable and vulgar 
 suggestion which connected Mrs. Gaylor with this affair 
 detestable for every one concerned; for Carmen, for Nick; 
 above all, for Angela. 
 
 "Mrs. Gaylor hasn't a servant who isn't loyal," he re- 
 turned at last, evading Wisler's eye. "But you'd better 
 get this notion out of your mind, to start with, or you'll 
 find yourself on the wrong track. Mrs. Gaylor and I 
 are good friends, no more. She doesn't know anything 
 about Mrs. May; and if she did, there's nothing to make her 
 jealous, even if if we were warmer friends than we are.'* 
 
 "Sure she never heard of the lady?"
 
 270 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Nick hesitated. "I don't see how she can have heard. 
 I haven't written to her since I met Mrs. May." 
 
 "Ah, you haven't written to her since then. H'm! 
 Does Mrs. Gaylor know Mr. Falconer and his sister, and 
 then' authoress friend Miss Dene?" 
 
 "Not Miss Dene. Come to think of it, I heard Miss 
 Dene say she'd like to meet Mrs. Gaylor. She asked 
 questions about her. But that's nothing." 
 
 "Perhaps they've been visiting back and forth since 
 then." 
 
 "If they have, it hasn't come to my knowledge." 
 
 "Women do a lot of things that don't come to men's 
 knowledge. That's one reason detectives exist. Well, 
 you don't seem much inclined to help me, Mr. Hilliard, 
 though you say you're anxious to get to the bottom of 
 this little mystery as soon as possible." 
 
 "I am anxious. And if I don't help you, it's because I 
 can't. I don't want you to lose yourself in the woods, and 
 have to find your way back, to begin all over again." 
 
 "No. I don't want that, either," said Wisler, smiling 
 his slow smile. "It's a long time since I got lost in the 
 woods, and I'll do my best not to lose my reckoning this 
 time. I must worry along without you, I see. But I'm 
 not discouraged. When you've finished up this trip that 
 you seem to think so important, I may have news for you, 
 of one kind or another." 
 
 Nick looked at his watch. It was time to go back to 
 the Fairmount if he meant to take Angela away that night.
 
 'xxin 
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 
 
 IN THINKING of the Yosemite, Angela had, half-uncon- 
 sciously, pictured herself and Nick Hilliard alone in the 
 valley together, separated from "mere tourists" by a kind 
 of magic wall. But down it tumbled with her first moment 
 at El Portal; and behold, on the other side of the wall 
 were hundreds of eager young men and women who no 
 doubt resented her existence as much as she resented 
 theirs. 
 
 The huge veranda of the log-built hotel, on the hill 
 above the railway, swarmed with brides and bridegrooms. 
 It was extremely early in the morning, and everybody 
 was sleepy, even those who had passed their night in the 
 hotel, not in the train; nevertheless, though good-natured, 
 one and all wore an air of square-chinned, indomitable 
 determination which puzzled Angela. 
 
 Something was evidently about to happen, something of 
 immense importance, for which each man with all his 
 feminine belongings intended to be ready if possible be- 
 fore any one else. Angela watched the silent preparations 
 with impersonal interest while she waited for Hilliard to 
 come from the office and tell her about the special car- 
 riage for which he had telegraphed. 
 
 By this tune a hasty breakfast had been snatched, and 
 
 271
 
 272 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE ' 
 
 in a crowded dining-room full of laughter and chattering 
 she had resigned herself to the falling of the magic wall. 
 Other people had a right to enjoy the Yosemite and she 
 must not grudge them their place. "I suppose," she said 
 to Kate, who stood beside her on the veranda, "that all 
 these nice girls and men are going off for different excur- 
 sions. They seem a good deal excited. I wonder 
 why?" 
 
 Just then a stage drawn by four splendid horses drove 
 up the veranda steps. Something was shouted. Angela 
 could not catch the announcement, for she had all she 
 could do not to be carried off her feet in the general rush. 
 A dozen of the firm-faced men and resolute girls made a 
 dash for the box seat. With no malice in their eyes, they 
 fought and wrestled with each other; and it was a case of 
 the best man wins. Those worsted in the struggle with 
 the utmost good-nature contented themselves with the 
 next best places; and so on to the back seat, into which 
 the weakest fell, almost before the driver had brought 
 his horses to a full stop. Away tore the stage with its 
 laughing load, and another vehicle whirled up to the hotel 
 steps, to be filled in a breathless instant. 
 
 As Angela stood watching, fascinated yet appalled, 
 Nick came out to her, with the air of a general who has 
 lost a battle. 
 
 "How glad I am," she whispered, "that we haven't got 
 to fight for our lives like that. I simply couldn't do it." 
 
 " Mrs. May, we have got to ! " he groaned. "I've failed, 
 after all my boastings of what I could do for you in the 
 Yosemite. A private carriage can't be had, and they've 
 made a rule that no one's allowed to book a seat in advance.
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY ' 273 
 
 When the stage for the Sentinel Hotel comes along, I 
 shall swing you on to the box seat, if I kill ten men." 
 
 Angela rebelled. She pitied herself so intensely that she 
 had no compassion left for Nick. " What dash people 
 away, and push ahead of them? I'd rather yes, I'd 
 rather turn back to San Francisco." 
 
 "I don't see myself letting you turn back," said Nick. 
 And said it so firmly that Angela, never opposed by him 
 before, looked up in surprise. He was not smiling. 
 Evidently he was in earnest, deadly earnest. She knew 
 that what he told her she would have to do, and, oddly 
 enough, she grew quite calm. 
 
 "When our stage comes along," he said in a low voice, 
 "I shall get in before any one else, and keep a place for 
 you. Don't hesitate a second, but be ready for a jump. 
 I'll have you up by my side before you know what's 
 happened. Kate must be close behind, and I'll try to 
 swing her up to the next seat." 
 
 "Why shouldn't we have the back places, since some- 
 body must?" Angela questioned meekly. 
 
 " Because I want you to have the best there is, and I'm 
 going to get it for you, that's the only reason," Nick 
 explained, leaving no room for further argument. "It's 
 the least I owe you, after failing to keep my other prom- 
 ises." 
 
 She said no more; and round her the fight for places 
 went on, desperate, yet extraordinarily good-natured. 
 People tried with all their might to grab what they coveted, 
 but if somebody else snatched it from under then* noses, 
 why, blame Kismet! The rule of the game was to make 
 no moan.
 
 274 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Always, as a new relay surged forward, Nick by some 
 insidious manoeuvre edged Angela and Kate nearer to the 
 front. At last he got them wedged behind the foremost 
 row of travellers who were waiting to spring upon and 
 overwhelm an approaching stage. Those who had won the 
 way to the front and achieved safety, unless defeated by 
 an unexpected rear attack, wore an appearance of de- 
 ceitful calm. Two extremely big young men, who had the 
 air of footballers in training, did what they could to form a 
 hollow square round a couple of fragile but determined 
 girls. The party, while in reality bent upon securing the 
 two best seats at any cost to life or limb, pretended to be 
 looking at an illustrated newspaper. This feint was in- 
 tended to put others off their guard; and the four con- 
 cealed their emotions by discussing the pictures on the 
 uppermost page. 
 
 A name spoken by one of the girls was an electric shock 
 for Angela. In an instant the veranda, the crowd on it, 
 and the stage whose turn would come next, vanished 
 from before her eyes like a dissolving view. 
 
 "Prince di Sereno! What a romantic name. And say, 
 isn't he handsome? I wonder if he's as good-looking as 
 that, really?" 
 
 "She's handsome, too," the other girl added. "I do 
 hope they won't be killed." 
 
 "Come along, kids look sharp!" said the two young 
 men. And before others who hoped to annex the box seat 
 could breathe after an interlude of footballing, the con. 
 quering four secured what they wanted. Those less 
 fortunate were tumbling up as best they could; and 
 Angela had scarcely time to realize that she had not
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 275 
 
 dreamed the incident, when the stageload had bounced 
 away. 
 
 She was left dazed, and blushing deeply, so deeply that 
 Nick, quick to notice lights and shadows on her face, 
 wondered what match had lit that rosy fire. 
 
 Angela's first thought was that somehow she had been 
 found out. Then she remembered that the girls had seen 
 the name in a newspaper. Also they had been looking at 
 Paolo's picture. And he could be handsome in a pict- 
 ure. But of whom had they said, " She's handsome, too? " 
 Could it be that her own photograph had been published 
 with Paolo's? If so, who had dared to reproduce it, and 
 why ? What if Nick should come across the picture and 
 recognize the face as hers? She did not want him to know 
 that she was the Princess di Sereno until, for her own 
 reasons and in her own time, she should choose to tell 
 him the story of her life. Once she had thought there 
 was no reason why he need ever know; that they would 
 part, and she would remain in his memory as Angela 
 May. Now, however, she began to see that the moment 
 must come when she would not only need, but wish, to 
 tell him all, so that he might know why. But she never 
 quite finished this explanation in her mind. It was too 
 fond of trying to finish itself without waiting to be put 
 into words. 
 
 She was a little frightened now, lest by chance there 
 should be a premature revelation, for in the rush to get 
 away the girls dropped the paper they had been reading. 
 It lay on the veranda steps, and though the cover was 
 turned back, and only an advertisement page could be seen, 
 Angela discovered that it was the Illustrated London News.
 
 276 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Perhaps the page which lay face down was the page of 
 the photograph. She half longed, half dreaded that a 
 flutter of wind or a passing foot might turn the paper over. 
 What could the girl have meant by saying, "I hope they 
 won't be killed?" 
 
 Could Angela have read Theo Dene's mind the day at 
 Santa Barbara, this picture and paragraph would have 
 been less mysterious to her. "I wonder if Mrs. May knows 
 about the Prince ?" Theo had asked herself. 
 
 "There's an English paper on the step," said Nick, 
 following the direction of her eyes. "Does it make you 
 homesick? If it does, I'll put in a claim to it. There 
 may be time for you to glance it over before the right stage 
 turns up." 
 
 "No, no," said Angela, hastily. "I don't want the 
 paper. And oh, look, it says 'Sentinel' on this stage 
 that's coming." 
 
 The next thing she knew, she was swaying between earth 
 and heaven, over heads that surged beneath her. Some- 
 how, Nick had got that place on the box seat, and he was 
 beside her, resolutely helping Kate on to the high step. 
 Suddenly, however, Timmy's covered basket flew open. 
 Kate had been playing with the cat, and had forgotten to 
 fasten Tim in. Resenting the confusion, Timmy made a 
 leap, Kate screamed and jumped down from the stage, 
 carrying not only the cat's basket, but a small dressing- 
 bag of Angela's all she had brought, except a suit-case 
 containing a dress or two for the journey. Some one 
 else had, of course, scrambled into the coveted seat 
 so miraculously vacated, and the stage, with its full 
 complement of passengers, went swinging down the
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 277 
 
 road, with Kate and Timmy and the dressing-bag left 
 behind. 
 
 "Shall we try to stop?" Nick began; but Angela cut 
 him short, her face now as determined as those of the 
 square-chinned girls who had passed triumphantly on 
 their way. "No!" she said. "I can't go through that 
 again! Kate will have to come on later." 
 
 "There'll be another 'Sentinel' stage in about an hour, 
 I guess," announced the good-natured driver. "She'll 
 be all right." 
 
 "She knows w T here we're going," said Angela. "She's a 
 quick-witted girl, and I shan't worry. I mean to be happy 
 in spite of everything and because of everything ! " 
 
 So the stage rolled on into the gate of the Yosemite 
 and Kate remained on the veranda of the hotel at El 
 Portal, consoling herself, when she had retrieved Timmy, 
 by looking at the pictures hi the Illustrated London News, 
 an old number of a fortnight or three weeks ago. She found 
 it so interesting and absorbing, one page in particular, 
 that when the next coach bound for the Sentinel Hotel 
 came along, she forgot to fight for a place until it was too 
 late to fight. There was not another stage bound for that 
 destination until to-morrow. And to-morrow Mrs. May 
 and Hilliard were going on somewhere else ; Kate could 
 not remember where. 
 
 Seeing her dismay, the manager of the hotel took pity 
 on the pretty Irish girl. "Never mind," said he. "You 
 can 'phone from here to the Sentinel. When your lady 
 arrives there this afternoon, she'll find your message and 
 know what's happened. Then she can 'phone back what 
 she wants you to do."
 
 278 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "But I won't get to her to-night, will I?" wailed Kate. 
 
 "No, you won't get to her to-night," he echoed. "But 
 I guess she ain't so helpless she can't do up her back hair 
 without you, is she?" 
 
 "Her blouse buttons up behind," Kate murmured, as 
 one murmurs in a painful dream. "And, oh, by the powers, 
 if I haven't got her nightgown in this dressing-bag ! " 
 
 Naturally the manager was not deeply interested in Mrs. 
 May's nightgown. As for Mrs. May herself, she was not 
 yet conscious of the loss of it. She was thinking, at first, 
 about the pictures which she had not seen in the Illustrated 
 London News, and the girl's exclamation: "I hope they 
 won't be killed!" Then, later, of the valley through 
 whose door she had just entered with Nick Hilliard, the 
 hidden valley which Indians knew and loved long before a 
 few cattle-seeking American soldiers ferreted out the secret. 
 
 The voice of the Merced drowned the dull voice of the 
 past which had suddenly called to her. It was a gay 
 laughing voice that sang among the tumbled rocks sent 
 down to the river for playthings, by her tall brothers the 
 mountains; and the voices of pines and cedars answered, 
 all singing the same high song in the same language the 
 language of Nature. Only, they sang in different tones 
 and different keys soprano and contralto, tenor and bass. 
 The song was so sweet that no one could think of any- 
 thing else, unless it might be of love; for the song told of 
 love, because nature is love. 
 
 As the sun rose higher and warmed the air, the valley 
 was like a great box full of spices, such as the three Wise 
 Men of the East carried for an offering when they followed 
 their Star; a secret, golden box was the valley, high-sided,
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 279 
 
 with a lid of turquoise and sapphire, which was the sky 
 itself. 
 
 The deep, still trout-pools of the Merced bravest and 
 strongest river of the valley were coloured like beds of 
 purple pansies; or they were vivid green, glinting with 
 sparks of gold, like the wings of a Brazilian beetle. Far 
 down in the clear depths, Angela caught glimpses of dart- 
 ing fish, swift as silver arrows shot from an unseen bow. 
 And close to the sky, high on the rocky sides of the Yo- 
 semite treasure-chest, were curiously traced bas-reliefs, 
 which might have been carved by a dead race of giants: 
 heads of elephants, profiles of Indians and Titanic tortoises, 
 most of them appropriately and whimsically named by 
 ancient pioneers. 
 
 "The Yosemite!" Angela said, over and over to her- 
 self. "I'm in the Yosemite Valley!" 
 
 Once, in the heart of a forest, a deer sprang out on to 
 the road and stood alert, quivering, as the stage lumbered 
 heavily toward it through sparkling red dust like pow- 
 dered rubies. Then, suddenly, when the horses were 
 almost upon it, the delicate creature bounded away, 
 vanishing among the shadows which seemed to have 
 given it birth, as a diving fish is swallowed up by water 
 and lost to sight. This vision lingered in Angela's memory 
 as one of the loveliest of the day; but the great cataracts 
 did their startling best, later, to paint out the earlier 
 pictures. 
 
 Even the first slender forerunners of the mighty torrents 
 were unforgettable, and individual. Long, ethereal, float- 
 ing white feathers drooped from the heads of tremendous 
 boulders that were gray with the glossy grayness of old sil-
 
 280 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 ver. Cascades were everywhere ; and the weaving of many 
 diamond-skeins of water behind a dark foreground of 
 motionless trees was like the ceaseless play of human 
 thought behind inscrutable faces whose expression never 
 changed. 
 
 Yet these silver tapestries, pearl-embroidered, were but 
 the binding for the Book of the Valley, the great poem of 
 the waterfalls; and as the stage brought them near the 
 home of the mighty cataracts, Nick and Angela noticed 
 that the atmosphere became mysteriously different. The 
 sky rolled down a blue curtain, to trail on the floor of 
 the valley, like a veil suspended before an altar-piece. 
 Through this curtain of exquisite texture bright as spun 
 glass, transparent as star-sapphires, and faintly shim- 
 mering their gaze travelled toward soaring peaks and 
 boulders, which seemed to rise behind the sky instead of 
 against it. Then, suddenly, out gleamed the dome of the 
 Bridal Veil, bright and high in the heavens as a comet 
 sweeping a glittering tail earthward. 
 
 Later, as the stage wound along the road and brought 
 them under the wall of the cataract, the rainbow diadem 
 that pinned the topmost folds of the veil glittered against 
 the noonday sun; and in the lacy woof of moving water, 
 lovely kaleidoscopic patterns played with constant inter- 
 change of flowery designs. Invisible fingers wove the bridal 
 lace, beading with diamonds the foliage of its design; or 
 so Angela thought when first she saw the falls. But pres- 
 ently she made a discovery one which Nick had made 
 years ago, and kept the secret that Angela might have the 
 joy of finding it for herself. 
 
 "Why, it isn't a veil, after all!" she exclaimed.
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 281 
 
 "I know," said Nick. "That effect's only for the first 
 few minutes, like a stage curtain hiding the real thing." 
 
 "And the real thing is only for the elect, like us," said 
 Angela, conceitedly. "Outsiders can't get behind the 
 curtain. Let me tell you what I see." 
 
 "And if we see the same thing?" 
 
 " Why, it would be a sign that we'd been friends in a 
 former incarnation, wouldn't it?" But this was a ques- 
 tion to leave unanswered, and she went on quickly to 
 describe what she saw behind the "stage curtain" of the 
 Bridal Veil. "A white witch falling - 
 
 " Yes, from the saddle of a black horse " 
 
 "A winged horse, like those the Valkyries ride. Oh> 
 now the witch has turned her face to me, as she falls. 
 She's putting me under a spell. I feel I shall never escape.'* 
 
 "I hope you never will," said Nick. "So we did see 
 the same thing in the Cascade ! I found the falling witch 
 when I was here before; but I came under the spell with 
 you." 
 
 He watched her face fearfully, as he ventured this, never 
 having dared as much before; and seeing that she turned 
 away, he drew her attention to El Capitan, grandest of the 
 near mountains. Nick had been reading The Cid, trying 
 to "worry through it in the old Spanish," he explained; and 
 the idea had come into his head that the mountain might 
 have been named by some Spaniard for " El Gran Capitan. " 
 "You see, it's too big and important for an everyday 
 Captain. But it's just right for El Gran Capitan: don't 
 you think so?" 
 
 Angela did think so, as he suggested it, though she 
 remembered next to nothing about The Cid. But Nick's
 
 282 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 knowledge of history, which had amazed her once, pleased 
 without surprising her now. She began to take his knowl- 
 edge of most things for granted. Here in the Yosemite 
 Valley he could teach and show her much that she might 
 have missed but for him, and his similes showed habits of 
 thought with which a few weeks ago she would not have 
 credited the ex-cowboy. He made the mountains take 
 shape for her as gods and heroes of Indian legends; he 
 told her of the Three Graces, and the Three Brothers, grim 
 as gray monks, who threw glances over then- round shoul- 
 ders at the Graces; and there was no drama or tragedy of 
 the valley that he did not know from its first act to the last. 
 
 In the afternoon the stage rushed them past a charming 
 camp in the woods, to the Sentinel Hotel, at the foot of the 
 Yosemite Falls. Angela was given a room opening on to a 
 veranda, and waiting for Nick to bring her some word 
 from Kate, by telephone, she stood looking up at the 
 immeasurable height of the cataract, which loomed white 
 across a brown sweep of trout-haunted river. "It's like a 
 perpendicular road of marble going up to heaven," she 
 thought; and as she gazed, down that precipice of snow 
 came tumbling a white shape as of a giant bear, striving 
 desperately to save itself, hanging for an instant on the 
 brink of the vast gulf, then letting go hopelessly and 
 plunging over. 
 
 Angela stepped out on the veranda to talk with Hilliard 
 when he came, and though shocked to hear that Kate 
 could not arrive that night, was glad to know her safe. 
 Nick had arranged that Kate should meet her mistress at 
 <jlacier Point next day. "And so," he said, "there's 
 nothing to bother about, if you can do without her for
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 283- 
 
 this one night. I hope you don't mind much, for I feel it 
 was my fault. I ought to have managed better." 
 
 "I don't mind in the least," Angela was beginning to 
 console him, when suddenly she broke off with an "Oh!" 
 of dismay, clasping her hands together. 
 
 "What's the matter?" Nick questioned anxiously. 
 
 "Nothing. Nothing at all." 
 
 " But there is something, Mrs. May. You must tell me, 
 and I'll try to make it right." 
 
 "What shops are there here?" she asked by way of 
 answer. 
 
 "Oh, you can buy photographs and souvenirs, and 
 candy and drugs, I expect." 
 
 Angela shook her head. "I don't want to buy them. 
 Do you think I could find a a nighty? " 
 
 "A 'nighty'?" 
 
 "A nightgown. You see, I've just remembered the 
 cascades and mountains made me forget my dressing- 
 bag was left behind with Kate. I've a frock or two, and 
 the new khaki things for to-morrow, hi my suit-case, but 
 nothing else. Brushes and combs and so on, I can get here 
 I'm sure. But would the shops if any run to 
 nighties?" 
 
 "No," said Nick, gloomily. "I'm afraid they wouldn't^ 
 anyhow not the sort that deserves a nice pet name like that. 
 But I'll get you one." 
 
 " You can't," said Angela. " You can't create a 'nighty* 
 or call it from the vasty deep." 
 
 "That's what I mean to do: call one from the vasty 
 deep; hook it up like a rare fish." 
 
 She laughed. "What bait will you use?"
 
 284 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "I don't know yet. But I'm going to find out. And 
 you shall have the 'nighty,' as you call it, by the time you 
 want it." 
 
 "You'd better not pledge yourself." 
 
 "I do. I've failed you often enough since we started! 
 I won't fail this time, you'll see. The thing you want must 
 exist somewhere within a radius of ten miles, and I'm 
 going to lasso it." 
 
 "But you didn't engage as a lassoer of nighties. You 
 engaged as trail guide." 
 
 " If anything is wanted along the trail, why then it's the 
 business of the trail guide to get it. Don't you worry about 
 your arrangements, Mrs. May." 
 
 " I don't. Meanwhile, I may find some kind of a garment 
 lurking on a forgotten shelf of the candy-drugs-grocery 
 shop." 
 
 " If you do, it wouldn't be worthy of you. But you can 
 try," said Nick dubiously. And after a late luncheon, she 
 did try, in vain. Other necessaries were forthcoming, but 
 nighties were things that you had to bring into the Yosemite 
 Valley, it would seem, or do without. Angela said nothing 
 of her failure. She supposed that Nick would forget her 
 plight if she made little of it; but she did not know him 
 thoroughly yet. They took a walk, and the momentous 
 subject was not mentioned: nevertheless, it pressed upon 
 Nick's thoughts. As he talked, the "nighty" that was not, 
 and must be, weighed upon his mind as heavily as though 
 it were a coat of mail instead of the gossamer creation he 
 imagined. 
 
 "Now I've got to concentrate and figure out what's 
 trumps," he said to himself, when Angela had gone to rest
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 285 
 
 before dinner. "I've dealt myself a mighty queer card, 
 but there's no good bluffing in this game." 
 
 The desired garment declared itself even to the untrained 
 masculine intelligence as a dainty and dreamlike thing, 
 which, to deserve its name and be worthy of a fastidious 
 wearer, must be delicate as the outer petals of a white rose. 
 
 How then to obtain for this despoiled goddess such a 
 marvel in a remote village, lost among Yosemite forests? 
 There was the rub; a vaguely groping "rub" with no 
 Aladdin's lamp to match. 
 
 Nick's thoughts ramped in the cage of his mind like a 
 menagerie of hungry animals awaiting food. Where was 
 that food in other words, an inspiration to be got? 
 Then of a sudden it dropped at his feet. 
 
 He had been pacing uneasily up and down his room; 
 but now, with all his customary decision, he touched the 
 electric bell. A trim chambermaid of superior and intelli- 
 gent appearance answered the call. 
 
 "Are you a Calif ornian?" was the first question flung 
 at the neat head, in place of an expected demand for hot 
 water. She had brought the water, and was equally 
 prepared for a want unforeseen. "Yes, sir," she said. 
 "I'm a Native Daughter." 
 
 " Hurrah ! " said Nick. " Then I know you won't fail me." 
 
 She was too well trained a girl to stare. "Are you a 
 Native Son?" she ventured, seeing that a lead would be 
 useful. 
 
 "No; but I ought to have been. My parents were 
 Californian, and my heart is and always will be. I have to 
 ask help from a Californian now, for the honour of Cali- 
 fornia."
 
 286 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Usually, when gentlemen clamoured for help from this 
 young person it was to find a collar stud. But not even 
 the most cherished collar stud could concern the honour of 
 the State. She waited, looking sympathetic; for Nick's 
 eyes would have drawn sympathy from a stone, and Jessy 
 Jones had not even a pebble in her composition. 
 
 "As a Calif ornian, I'm showing California to a lady," he 
 explained. "She's from Europe, and I don't want her to 
 think the old civilization can produce anything better 
 than ours." 
 
 "I should think not!" retorted the Native Daughter. 
 "What is she looking for that we can't produce, I'd like to 
 know?" 
 
 "A nightgown," confessed Nick, boldly. " You see," 
 he hurried on, "she's lost the bag she had it in." 
 
 "Oh, if that's all, I " 
 
 "Have you seen the lady, over in the annex, in number 
 twenty-three? " 
 
 "Yes," said Jessy. "One of the girls told me there was 
 a regular beauty there, English or something, so I made an 
 errand that way. So she's the lady? Well, that makes it 
 harder! 'Tisn't everything would do for her. I guess 
 she's rather special." 
 
 " I guess so, too. That was what worried me. Because 
 it's for the honour of California that a foreigner should be 
 supplied, even at a moment's notice, with something as 
 good as she could get at home." 
 
 "If not better," Jessy corrected him. 
 
 " If not better. Of course, if an American lady lost her 
 baggage she'd make allowances, being at home. And if 
 she couldn't get what she wanted, she'd be good-natured
 
 THE HAPPY VALLEY 287 
 
 and want what she could get. Well, this lady's good- 
 natured, too; but it's no compliment to the Yosemite for 
 her to expect little and have what she expects." 
 
 "No. We must surprise her." 
 
 "Exactly. For the honour of California. Let's mingle 
 OUT brains," said Nick. 
 
 "I guess they'll be more useful kept separate, sir; each 
 along its own line." 
 
 " Does yours keep a line of the right thing? " 
 
 "It begins to see its way there. We've a lady staying 
 in the hotel, Mrs. Everett, from San Francisco, who's got 
 what we want. Mrs. Everett's a Native Daughter, too. 
 Oh, yes, she'll spare one her prettiest. Don't you 
 worry, and don't you say a word to your friend. I and Mrs. 
 Everett will do the rest. When that lady from Europe opens 
 her door to-night she'll see lying on her bed something 
 that'll keep her from knowing the difference between the 
 Yosemite Valley and Paris. Trust two Native Daughters." 
 
 " I will," said Nick devoutly. And he shook hands with 
 Jessy Jones. He knew better than to offer money at this 
 stage of the game; for he, too, was a Calif ornian, and 
 honour was concerned. 
 
 That night, her spirit illumined by the unearthly glory 
 of a lunar rainbow, Angela went to her room with a faint 
 sense of anticlimax, in the discomfort she expected. 
 Then, making a light, she saw foaming over the coverlet 
 a froth of lace and film of cambric. Almost it might have 
 been woven from the moon-rainbow. But pinned on to a 
 sleeve-knot of pale pink ribbon was a slip of paper; and 
 on the slip of paper were a few words in a woman's hand- 
 writing: "Compliments of California to Mrs. May."
 
 XXIV 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 
 
 A FAINT fragrance of roses haunted the mysterious 
 "nighty," filled the room, and mingled with Angela's 
 dreams. All night long she walked in a garden of sleeping 
 flowers, "sweet shut mouths of rosebuds, and closed white 
 lids of lilies"; and it seemed but a short night, for in her 
 dreams she had hah* the garden still to explore in search- 
 ing for Nick, it seemed when a rap, sharp as the break- 
 ing of a tree branch, made her start up in bed. A dim 
 impression was in her mind that a voice had accompanied 
 the rap, and had made an unsympathetic announcement 
 which meant the need to get up. But the only really im- 
 portant thing was to run back into the garden and find 
 Nick Hilliard, as otherwise she might miss him forever. 
 So Angela shut her eyes, and hurried down dim labyrinths, 
 where she had been wandering before, and called to Nick : 
 '* I'm here again. Where are you?" 
 
 The rosebuds and lilies were still there, fast asleep, yet 
 somehow the garden was different and not so beautiful. 
 A handsome woman, with black hair, was gathering the 
 flowers, pretending not to see Angela, and Nick had gone. 
 A girl's voice somewhere was saying, "Prince di Sereno! 
 What a romantic name." 
 
 It only seemed a minute since the first knock, but now 
 
 288
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 289 
 
 there came another; and this time the announcement was 
 even more disturbing: "Breakfast's ready!" Immedi- 
 ately after, as if to show that no arguing would avail, 
 steps went clanking along the veranda, heavy at first, 
 fainter with distance, and at last a convulsive banging on 
 the door of some other unfortunate. 
 
 Now Angela wished no longer to return to the garden of 
 sleep. She was glad to get up, bathe in haste and dress 
 breathlessly, for she had asked to be called at five in order 
 to breakfast before six. In a strenuous quarter of an hour 
 she had arrived at the blouse-fastening stage of her toilet; 
 and, as luck would have it, the blouse concerned was one 
 which did not approve of hurry, and tolerated no liberties. 
 It was of fine cambric, hand-embroidered, fastening at the 
 back, where on one side lived a quantity of tiny pearl 
 buttons, made to mate with an equal number of loops on 
 the other side, very little loops of linen thread. As works 
 of art these were admirable, but they liked to be waited 
 upon respectfully by an experienced lady's maid. Missing 
 such attentions, not one would consent to yoke itself with 
 its appointed button. 
 
 Angela grew warm and flurried. She rang, but no one 
 answered the bell, for it was not yet six o'clock; and only 
 a few of the hotel servants had come on duty. 
 
 What should she do ? Last night she had looked forward 
 with interest to dressing this morning, for Nick had got for 
 her a costume suitable for riding a trail pony, and fortu- 
 nately she had it in her suit-case. It was of khaki, with a 
 divided skirt, and a peculiarly fetching jacket. But the 
 jacket must be worn over a thin blouse; and she could 
 not go out to breakfast with that blouse unbuttoned from
 
 290 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 neck to waist. No doubt by this time Nick was waiting. 
 A large party would start from the hotel to drive to Mirror 
 Lake, and they two were to be in the crowd though not 
 of it finding their trail ponies later. She might, of 
 course, keep her "forest creature" waiting indefinitely. 
 He was inured to that treatment and would not complain; 
 but the others? 
 
 "Are you ready, Mrs. May?" Nick's voice inquired 
 apologetically, outside the door. " I hope you won't mind 
 my bothering you, but I thought perhaps your call had 
 been forgotten, so " 
 
 "Can you do my blouse for me? Because I can't! 
 And if you can't I shall cry," moaned Angela in a voice of 
 despair. She dashed the door open, and stood on the 
 threshold, in the sweet dawn, the river laughing at 
 her plight. 
 
 Nick did not laugh. 
 
 There was his Angel, in her short khaki skirt, and the 
 thin cambric blouse that would not button. Her face was 
 flushed, her eyes sparkling with that dress-rage than which 
 no emotion known to woman is more fiercely primitive. 
 She was in an early morning "I don't care what happens 
 now!" mood; but Nick cared. 
 
 In the first place, as his eyes took in the situation, *he 
 was overwhelmed with a sense of vast responsibility. If 
 he could not "do" the blouse, Mrs. May had threatened 
 to cry, and she looked as if she would keep her word. So 
 "do" the blouse he must, if the sky fell. And if he 
 couldn't, it had better fall ! 
 
 Angela stood with her back to her victim, and the 
 rosy light of sunrise turned a small visible slip of white
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 291 
 
 skin to pearl. A ring or two of bright hair, moist from 
 her bath, curled out from the turned-up mass of gold, and 
 hovered like little glittering bees just over the top but- 
 tons of Mrs. May's collar, which Nick must now attack. 
 What if some of that shiny hair was twisted around 
 the buttons ? Good heavens! On closer inspection it 
 was! 
 
 The man's heart, which was beating fast, seemed sud- 
 denly to turn to water wild, rushing water, like that 
 of the river below the fall. 
 
 "Can you do it?" asked Angela, anxiously. 
 
 "I sure will," answered Nick, with a hundred per cent, 
 more confidence than he felt. A confidence somewhat 
 increased, however, by last evening's success. "Do I 
 begin at the neck or the waist?" he inquired in his most 
 matter-of-fact voice, as if he were about to cord a box, or 
 nail up a crate of oranges. 
 
 "At the neck," Angela instructed him. 
 
 The stricken young man had a curious sensation, as if 
 his hands were swelling to an immense size. He seemed 
 to have as much control of his fingers as though he wore a 
 pair of boxing gloves. 
 
 He took hold gingerly of the delicately embroidered 
 collar, a thumb and finger on either side. "I guess it 
 won't meet," he ventured, tentatively. 
 
 " Oh, yes, it will. Just pull it together firmly." 
 
 Nick pulled with resolution. 
 
 " Ugh ! You're choking me ! " she gurgled. 
 
 All that water which once had been his heart trickled 
 vaguely and icily through the wrong veins, upsetting his 
 whole system.
 
 292 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Forgive me this time!" he implored. "It's going to 
 be right, just as soon as as I find the buttonholes." 
 
 "There aren't any. They're loops." 
 
 "Oh, those tiny little stick-up things, like loosened 
 threads?" 
 
 "Yes. You'll see it's quite easy, after the first." 
 
 Oh, was it indeed? Nick suppressed a groan, not at his 
 task, but at his own oxlike awkwardness (so he anathe- 
 matized it) that made a torture of a delicious privilege. 
 Evidently it was a much harder thing to lasso one of these 
 little pearl atrocities with its alleged "loop" than to rope 
 a vicious steer. And there were those tangling threads of 
 gold. If he should hurt her! 
 
 The ex-cowboy almost prayed, as, with the caution of 
 a man treading upon knife-blades on the edge of a preci- 
 pice, he unwound the two little curls from the top button 
 of the collar. And perhaps his unconscious appeal for 
 mercy had its effect, for the tendrils yielded graciously to 
 coaxing. He would have given a year of his life to kiss 
 one of those curls; a comparatively worthless year it would 
 be, since, in all probability, it would be empty of Angela 
 May ! Yet no now that he had touched her like this, now 
 that he had come so near to her, he felt with all his soul that 
 he could never let her go. He would have to keep her 
 somehow. 
 
 "She may think there's a dead line between us," he told 
 himself; "but before we leave the Yosemite Valley to- 
 gether I'm going to do my best to cross that line, if I get 
 shot for my cheek. -It's better to dare the dash and die, 
 than not to dare, and lose her." 
 
 Never, perhaps, was so desperate a resolve cemented
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 293 
 
 while fastening a woman's blouse; but there was a hint of 
 triumph in Nick's voice as he announced, "I've done it!" 
 His signal success in two operations of extreme difficulty 
 seemed to him like two separate good omens. 
 
 Angela lightly thanked her knight for his services and 
 bade him wait on the veranda while she put on her jacket 
 and hat. A minute later she came out again, ready for 
 breakfast; and now, having a mind released from buttons, 
 she saw that Nick was good to look upon in his khaki 
 riding-clothes. 
 
 "Am I all right?" she inquired modestly. 
 
 "Better than all right," he allowed himself to answer. 
 
 "I do think this hat of Hawaiian straw is a success. 
 And you well, I'm rather proud of my trail guide. Used 
 you to dress like that in your cowboy days?" 
 
 Nick laughed. " Great Scot, no ! I'd have been in rags 
 in no time. Didn't you ever see a cowpuncher's 'shaps'? " 
 
 "No; I don't even know what they are. Have you 
 kept your cowboy things?" 
 
 "Oh, yes. They're knocking around somewhere. I 
 have to put them on once in a while." 
 
 " If I accept your invitation to come and see your place, 
 will you 'dress up' in them? " 
 
 "Of course, if it'd please you. But I'd feel a fool rigging 
 myself out just to show off, like an actor." 
 
 "Yet, that's the bribe you'll have to offer if you want 
 me to pay you a visit." 
 
 "It's settled then. I hope the moths haven't got my 
 'shaps' since I had 'em on last." 
 
 They both laughed and went to breakfast. What a good 
 world it was ! Angela told Nick the tale of the mysterious
 
 294 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 apparition of a beauteous "nighty," and wondered how 
 she could ever have felt unhappy, or depressingly grown 
 up. 
 
 The others who were going to Mirror Lake were almost 
 ready to start, and the "buckboard" which was to take 
 Nick and Angela had come to the hotel door. But these 
 two, at all tunes small eaters, were exhilarated by the wine 
 of life, and a little milk and bread sufficed them. They did 
 not keep the party waiting, and so they were regarded with 
 favour the handsome young man and the lovely girl 
 about whose relations to each other people were quite 
 good-naturedly speculating. Angela saw that she was 
 regarded with interest, and that eyes turned from her 
 to Nick. But she was "only Mrs. May, whom nobody 
 knows." After the drive on the buckboard she and Nick 
 would be separating from the rest. That night, at Glacier 
 Point, she would find Kate, already arrived from El Portal; 
 and then she would never see any of these pleasant ques- 
 tioning-eyed young people again. The most reckless part 
 of the adventure would be over with this day and she 
 was rather sorry. After all, she did not much regret the 
 wave of fate which had swept her and her maid-chaperon 
 temporarily apart. There was a certain piquancy in trav- 
 elling alone with this knight-errant. 
 
 Mirror Lake well-named was asleep still, and 
 dreaming of the mountains which imprisoned it as dragons 
 used to imprison princesses in glass retorts. There was 
 the dream, lying deep down and visible under the clear 
 surface; and when every one else had gone off to the trail 
 ponies, Nick and Angela stayed to watch the water's 
 waking. It was a darting fish which, with a splash and a
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 295 
 
 ripple, shattered the picture; but the ripple died, and the 
 lake slept again, taking up its dream where it had been 
 broken off, as Angela had tried to do. She had failed, 
 for her picture had changed for the worse when she found 
 it again; but the second dream of Mirror Lake was fairer 
 than the first. Into it there stole a joyous luminance 
 which made saints' haloes for the reflected heads of 
 mountains. The sun rose, and stepped slowly into the 
 water's dream. It flung the lake a golden loving cup, 
 thrilling it to the heart with that bright gift. 
 
 A little farther on, by the Happy Isles small, lovely 
 islands of rock in the river's whirl Nick and Angela found 
 their trail ponies waiting in charge of a boy. But Nick 
 knew the trail well, and was to be the sole guide, as they had 
 always planned. He put Angela up on an intelligent 
 brown bronco, which had to be ridden Mexican fashion; 
 and they set off together, the boy looking after them as if 
 he, too, would have liked to follow the trail. 
 
 Far ahead they could see the procession of their lost 
 companions, just rounding a sharp corner. They were an 
 admirable cavalcade in khaki, the men wearing sombreros, 
 the girls with brilliant blue or green veils tied over big 
 hats, and scarlet silk handkerchiefs knotted at their necks. 
 The gaily coloured figures on horse or mule back fitted the 
 picture as appropriately as if they had been Indians; and 
 Angela gazed at them with pleasure; but she felt no wish 
 to join the band. 
 
 Nick led; she rode close behind, sometimes mounting, 
 sometimes descending the narrow trail toward Glacier 
 Point. By and by Hall Dome, one of the great granite 
 mountains, began to dominate the world; but though the
 
 296 
 
 cascades were in his kingdom they could not be governed 
 by him, because spirits are not ruled by earthly kings. 
 There was Vernal Fall, gentle in majesty; and Nevada, a 
 wild and untamed water spirit; and retrospect glimpses of 
 the Yosemite Falls. 
 
 Close to Nevada, they reached a famous viewpoint, and 
 Nick took Angela off her pony that she might stand near 
 the edge and see the white torrent plunge over an unthink- 
 able abyss. Always she had hated to look down from 
 heights, because they made her long to jump and end 
 everything. But to-day she was in love with life, and the 
 leap of the waters quickened her heart with a sense of 
 power. On the pony again, as they went up and up, or 
 down steep rocky ways on the verge of sheer abysses, she 
 had no fear. She seemed to be learning a lesson of peace, 
 a lesson such as only unspoiled nature can teach. 
 
 From the high levels they had reached, they looked 
 down on clouds that glittered silver-white as snow-capped 
 mountain-heads. Among the rocks, where the ponies' 
 hoofs picked their way, wild flowers sprang, strange and 
 lovely blossoms such as Angela had never seen; but Nick 
 knew most of them by name. Bird notes dropped like 
 honey from fragrant shrubs and trees that hid the singers. 
 Squirrels with plumed tails, and chipmunks striped white, 
 gray, and brown, raced across the trail, or peered with the 
 bright beads they had for eyes from piles of dead wood that 
 lay gray as skeletons among the living green of the moun- 
 tain forest. Far below, Silver Apron Fall splashed into the 
 Emerald Pool and turned its green jewels to diamonds. 
 The near forests and faraway waters sang hi the different 
 voices the same song other waters and forests had sung
 
 1
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 297 
 
 yesterday; but this song of the High Sierra had wilder 
 notes, above and beyond all knowledge of fleeting episodes 
 such as human lives and civilizations. For the song had 
 not changed since the w r orld was young. The air was not 
 mere air, but seemingly a conscious mingling of Divine 
 Ether with the atmosphere. Though they ascended 
 always, it was as if they rode through the depths of a 
 crystal sea, unstirred by their presence, a sea as deep and 
 as high as heaven, a blue that took the solidity of tur- 
 quoise between tree-trunks and paled to opaline fire 
 across the canon. Angela knew that never again, after 
 these spacious days, could she go back to her old self. 
 She felt that she had mounted one step higher on the stage 
 of development, and gained an ampler view. It was 
 easier now than it had been to see how Nick Hilliard had 
 become what he was. Nature, on the grandest scale 
 and with the "grand manner," she thought, had given 
 him his education; had been for him at once school- 
 mistress, guide, and companion. And no college built 
 by man could give, for money, such knowledge as sky and 
 wide spaces had given Nick for love. 
 
 Early in the afternoon the ponies brought them to the 
 high plateau of Glacier Point, where, looking down, the 
 world was a sea billowing with mountains, foaming with 
 cataracts. 
 
 Angela was deliciously tired; and the long low hotel, 
 built of logs, with a huge veranda, seemed to promise the 
 welcome she wanted : a cool, clean room, a warm bath, and 
 afterward luncheon. Also, she expected to find Kate. 
 Nick had wired, or telephoned, she was uncertain which; 
 and though no answer had been received, Kate's silence
 
 298 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 might no doubt be easily explained later. Angela felt con- 
 fident that she would have precisely the room she pictured; 
 she rather hoped it would be white and green. 
 
 The manager met them on the veranda, but it was not 
 the manager Nick had known. 
 
 "My name's Hilliard," Nick began. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I 'phoned an answer to you at the Sentinel 
 Hotel this morning. Something wrong with the wire 
 between us yesterday." 
 
 "We must have started before you 'phoned." 
 
 "Well, I'm sorry. You wanted two rooms. But the 
 best we can do for you and Mrs. Hilliard is one." 
 
 "Great Scot, you don't know what you're talking 
 about!" gasped Nick. "This is Mrs. May." 
 
 " Beg your pardon, Mr. May. I thought you said your 
 name was Hilliard." 
 
 " It is. But hers isn't. We I I'm only her guide," 
 stammered Nick, so deeply embarrassed for Angela's sake 
 that for the moment he lost his presence of mind. "It's 
 the last straw," he thought. "She'll never forgive me." 
 And he dared not look to see how she had taken the blow, 
 until she surprised him by laughing. She was blushing a 
 little, too. 
 
 "Do you remember the laundry in New Orleans?" she 
 asked. "I'm afraid it will have to be the laundry for you 
 again, or else a refrigerator." 
 
 Nick was of opinion that the refrigerator would better 
 suit the state of his complexion, which needed cooling, but 
 his relief at seeing Angela amused, not offended, was too 
 great for words. He mumbled something vague about any 
 cupboard or cellar being good enough, and began to re-
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 299 
 
 cover himself; but his confusion had been contagious. 
 The hotel manager caught the disease, and hoped Mrs. 
 Willard would excuse him no, he meant Mrs. Day no, 
 really he began to be afraid that he didn't remember 
 rightly what he meant! He'd got Mrs. Milliard and Mr. 
 Hay mixed up, and would they sort themselves, please? 
 Once he had them straightened out in his mind, he'd try 
 to keep them straight. 
 
 "Has my maid come on from El Portal?" Angela 
 thought this a propitious moment for a question on some 
 other subject. 
 
 "Your maid? No, Mrs. Hill, she hasn't." 
 
 "And no message? How strange!" 
 
 "Nothing that I've heard of. But I'll let you know. 
 If Mr. Mayard Mr. Mill, will come with me to the 
 'phone, when you're in his room I mean, when you're 
 in yours we may get on to El Portal." 
 
 Angela was still laughing to herself, when word was 
 brought by a chambermaid that Kate had telephoned from 
 El Portal. She had hurt her ankle in getting into the stage 
 (Angela could quite imagine that!), and had not been able 
 to proceed. It was not, however, a regular sprain. She 
 was in bandages, but better; and it was now settled that, 
 without fail, she was to meet Mrs. May at Wawona to- 
 morrow. "And your husband wants to know," added the 
 chambermaid, "what time you would like to have your 
 lunch." 
 
 "He is not my husband," said Angela. 
 
 The young woman froze. 
 
 "We are friends." 
 
 The scandalized muscles relaxed. There was a high
 
 300 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 nobility in friendship. The chambermaid herself had a 
 friend, who talked a great deal about Plato, in the cheap 
 edition. 
 
 "And will you please say I shall be ready in twenty 
 minutes?" 
 
 Standing on the hotel veranda together, after luncheon, 
 "Mrs. Mill and Mr. Hayward" he restored to calmness 
 could look thousands of feet down to the floor of the 
 valley. Exactly how many thousands of feet there were 
 Angela refused to be told, for the distance seemed illimit- 
 able, and cold facts might dwarf imagination. They saw 
 the Yosemite Falls, a quivering white vein on a dark 
 wall a million miles away. Mirror Lake was a splinter 
 of glass on a pavement of green tiles. Nevada and Vernal 
 Falls were pale yet bright as streaks of stardrift, in the 
 blue haze of distance. 
 
 If it had not been for the episode of Mrs. Hilliard and 
 Mr. May, Nick might have felt tempted to try his fate, 
 and dare the dash across the "dead line," that evening 
 of moonlight on the mountain-top. But it might, he 
 thought, seem like presuming on what had happened; and 
 having come, more or less safely, round an awkward turn- 
 ing, he was thankful to find himself on a narrow ledge of 
 security. The moonshine, that turned mountains to 
 marble and sky to pearl, was cold as it was pure; and in its 
 bleaching radiance Angela seemed less woman than spirit. 
 He dared not let that angel know how hot was his heart. 
 
 "I'll wait till we're among the Big Trees," he said to 
 himself. "They're great, as great as the mountains in 
 their way, but they're friendly and kind, as if they might 
 help. That's where I'll risk it all : in the Mariposa Forest,
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 301 
 
 the place I like better than any other in the world. So 
 whatever happens, we shall have seen the best there is 
 together, and all that will be mine to remember, if I lose 
 everything else." 
 
 The next day was a day of forest and flowers. 
 
 They were not travelling this time in an ordinary stage, 
 for Nick had secured a buckboard for themselves alone, 
 with a driver who knew the country, with its beauties and 
 legends, as well as he knew his big muscular gray horses. 
 
 Those never-ending, cathedral-forests of America's 
 National Park were wilder than any that Angela had 
 imagined. She hardly believed that the great redwoods 
 which she was to see to-morrow could be grander than these 
 immense fluted columns of cedar and pine. In the arms 
 of the biggest and most virile trees, many slender sapling 
 shapes, storm-broken, or tired of facing life alone, lay 
 helplessly. But the driver's heart was proof against a 
 romantic view of this situation, as sketched by Angela. 
 "It oughtn't to be allowed," he said, sternly. "Think of 
 the danger in fire. That's what is called by the foresters 
 'extra hazard,' as I guess Mr. Hilliard knows." 
 
 Oh, yes, Nick knew. But, seeing with Angela's eyes, 
 he envied the lover-trees their peril. He, a lonely tree, 
 had already taken fire, but he would gladly risk the "extra 
 hazard." What if and his thoughts ran ahead to the 
 day in the redwoods, that day set apart by his mind as the 
 clou of the excursion what if the thing her eyes seemed to 
 say to him should be true? What if she could love him, 
 and give up her world, that world which he saw vaguely, 
 as a dazzling vision? What if, to-morrow, she too should 
 know the thrill of "extra hazard"?
 
 302 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 No wonder, then, as he dreamed, that the glacier 
 meadows encircled by green walls of forest primeval should 
 seem like fairy rings, visible to mortal eyes only as a special 
 privilege. In the sunlight-gold, the sheets of azaleas, 
 cyclamen, and violets, were embroidered tapestries of 
 pink and purple; the bright rivulets of melting snow that 
 bathed the wild flowers' roots became a network of 
 diamonds. 
 
 Here and there, under the huge coniferous trees, lay 
 patches of snow still unmelted, though the month was June. 
 Indian fire glowed red on the white expanse, blood on 
 marble, and scarlet snow-plant sent up lurid spouts like 
 flaming fountains. The tree-shadows were painted pools 
 of lupin, azure lakes; or they were purple seas of larkspur. 
 Mountain-roses and wild lilac tangled in a maze of pink and 
 white and gold. Bear-clover crowned the bald gray heads 
 of rocks, or shone out like star-white strawberry blos- 
 soms from under a thicket of deer-bush. Wild asters 
 burned rosily, like small Catherine wheels half extin- 
 guished. Small, mottled tiger lilies blazed among the pale 
 young fronds of growing bracken : the air was scented with 
 wild roses and the spicy fragrance of manzanita trees 
 the breath of California. But loveliest and strangest of 
 all things were the gardens chosen for their own by the 
 mariposa lilies. The trembling winged flowers hovered 
 airily just above the earth, like a flock of alighting butter- 
 flies ; and overhead poised real butterflies, of the self-same 
 delicate tints hardly strong enough to be named as colours; 
 silvery white, faint lilac, and a'sunrise-hint of rose. Ground 
 butterflies and air butterflies seemed kin to one another, 
 those rooted to the ground longing for wings, those to
 
 THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE 303 
 
 whom earth offered no permanent foothold envying their 
 half-sister's rest and peace. 
 
 Here in the mountains it was spring, though down below 
 in the valleys full summer had come; and toward evening 
 Angela and Nick descended once again to the summer 
 world. 
 
 The valley of Wawona was laid out on the plan of those 
 fairy rings, alias glacier meadows, which they had seen in 
 higher places, only this was a fairy ring on a grander scale. 
 It semed so hidden by a belt of mountains that its green 
 lawns, its gardens, its fountains and flowers might have 
 been originally discovered only by some happy accident. 
 But the discoverer being of a practical turn of mind, he 
 or his descendants had built a delightful though unobtru- 
 sive hotel on a spot which might still have been warm 
 from the fairies. On the veranda of the hotel was Kate, 
 beaming with smiles of welcome as the buckboard coming 
 down from Glacier Point brought her mistress in sight. 
 
 "Oh, it was a lovely place!" said Kate. And sure, 
 how happy she and Timmy were to be there at last. She 
 had arrived hours ago, and was nicely rested, yes, thank 
 you, ma'am. 
 
 There were saucers of white violets, and vases of iris 
 and Washington lilies in Mrs. May's bedroom. Here were 
 no embarrassing complications connected with "Mr." May 
 and "Mrs." Hilliard. All was peace; and as the dust 
 which had turned Angela's golden hair to silver was being 
 brushed away by Kate, the tale of the maid's adventures 
 was unfolded. Yet Angela, smiling gently, as she inhaled 
 the sweetness of violets, hardly listened. She was glad 
 that Kate was almost well and that Timmy was restored
 
 304 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 to the bosom of his family. But it seemed to her that no 
 one except herself had had any adventures worth the 
 name. No one else could ever have adventures half as good ! 
 Even she no, not for her could their like come again. 
 She began to grudge the passing of the hours, wishing that 
 she had the power to stop all the clocks of the world.
 
 XXV 
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY 
 
 "I WANT to write things in my diary," said Angela. 
 "Now, lest I forget or they change colour. I want 
 to write here, so that afterward, when I read the page 
 I may see the pictures." 
 
 They were in the palace of the giants redwoods, she and 
 Nick, and several robins and chipmunks. They had been 
 there all day, and soon it would be sunset. Then the 
 moon would come to light them home. They would leave 
 the palace, and the Best Day would end. 
 
 They had lunched and dined with a huge fallen log for 
 a table, and squirrels for their honoured guests. Now 
 they had come back (carrying out a plan made in the 
 morning) to sit under the Grizzly Giant, king of the great 
 Sequoias, and there watch the sun setting. The Giant 
 seemed to know all they were doing and saying. Not only 
 that, but what they were thinking, too. He had great 
 deep-set black eyes, which some foolish people might 
 mistake for knot-holes, and with these he looked down 
 gravely, perhaps benevolently, on the dark head and the 
 golden one. 
 
 That was his human aspect; but he had others, and it 
 was about one of them that Angela wished to write just 
 a few words which she might like to read again some day. 
 
 305
 
 306 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 In the gray suede receptacle which had temporarily and 
 publicly superseded the gold bag, she carried a small 
 book. It was one of three volumes. Two had been filled 
 since her arrival in America, but this was just begun. 
 There was not much in it yet. It began with El Portal. 
 Where would it stop? Already she was wondering. 
 Maybe she would never write any more after to-day. Or 
 the story might go on for a little, and end when this trip 
 with her "trail guide" ended. Or it might continue, 
 more perfunctorily, just long enough to lay the foundation 
 of her new house, the plans of which were now materializ- 
 ing in an architect's brain. Her interest in those plans had 
 fallen asleep. Everything outside this vast cathedral of 
 a thousand fluted red columns seemed far away and un- 
 real. The heart of the world was throbbing here, like the 
 music of a muffled organ, with only Nick Hilliard and 
 herself for audience. 
 
 "I didn't know you kept a diary," said Nick. "Some- 
 how you don't seem the sort who would." 
 
 "I don't 'keep' one," Angela explained. "When I 
 was a little girl and went abroad with my mother, I used 
 to write things about the days to please my father at 
 home. I loved him very much. But he never saw 
 the book. After he died I wrote no more, until I 
 came to California. Now" (she spoke hastily), "I 
 write about things, not people. I make pictures for 
 myself to look at afterward; for I can't bear to 
 think that my impressions may grow dim, even when 
 I'm old." 
 
 " I suppose I mustn't ask to see what you write to-day? " 
 Nick ventured. By and by he meant to ask a thing so
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY 307 
 
 much bolder and bigger that he wished to try his feet on 
 the difficult path. 
 
 "I must read it myself before I can judge," Angela 
 smiled, surprised at the suggestion from one who never 
 put himself forward; who had never begged for concession 
 or favour since offering himself as "trail guide." "Now 
 don't speak to me for a while. I want to call the whole day 
 back." 
 
 But though his lips were closed his eyes were not; and 
 they seldom wandered from the bent head gold against a 
 dark tree-trunk; and the cameo profile ivory-white 
 upon a red-brown background. 
 
 Angela was sitting under the generous shade of the 
 Grizzly Giant. Nick lay resting on his elbow, just near 
 enough to touch with his shoulder the soles of her small, 
 dusty shoes, crossed one over the other. 
 
 After all, it was not as easy to write as Angela 
 had expected, with Nick lying silent, and so close 
 to her that it seemed, if she should listen, she might 
 hear his thoughts, like the ticking of a watch under a 
 pillow. 
 
 She began by noting down commonplace things, as 
 though by way of sorting out her impressions. 
 
 "We left Kate this morning at Wawona. What dear 
 people keep that hotel ! In Europe one never thinks about 
 hotel-keepers. If everything is right, one simply takes 
 them for granted, as one breathes good air. It's different 
 here in the West of America. They these charming, 
 kind people lent us their own ' buckboard ' a glorified 
 one; and their two horses, Cash and Credit, who are famous. 
 Darling animals they are, and understand every word that's
 
 308 
 
 said to them. When they die, generations of California 
 horses ought to be named Cash and Credit to preserve 
 their memory. 
 
 "We started early, just after the morning had been 
 born, so as to miss nothing. And first of all we had 
 a quick rush through the flowery valley of Wawona 
 a kind of prelude to the music of the great redwoods. 
 And I think it helped me to appreciate and understand 
 them. We saw Stellar Lake, named by inspiration, for 
 it looks a blue sky half full of stars; and I had my first 
 sight of a fish hatchery. I'd no notion it could be so ex- 
 citing to watch the career of trout from the egg stage up to 
 rainbow maturity. Never shall I forget grabbing a hand- 
 ful of tiny wriggling fish out of the trough of water where 
 they lived, and holding them in the hollow of my palm 
 for an instant ! They looked like big silver commas, and 
 interrogation points, oh, but punctuations of all kinds; 
 and they felt like iced popcorn. I don't think I shall 
 ever eat trout again. It would be so treacherous, now 
 that I seem to have known the creatures from the cradle 
 to the grave. 
 
 "But about the Big Trees, which at this present moment 
 are to me the most important things on earth. I've seen 
 a good deal of the earth, but nothing so good, nothing so 
 glorious. No wonder Mr. Hilliard says, 'Why need people 
 build churches in this part of the world, when they have 
 the redwood cathedral built by God, full of the sound of 
 His organ music?' 
 
 "All through the Yosemite there is music. You hear 
 the forest talking, and think it is the river. You hear the 
 river, and think it is the wind giving a signal to the trees,
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY 309 
 
 that they may begin speaking; for trees and river and wind 
 have lived so long together like people married happily 
 since early youth that thoughts and words and tones 
 have come to be the same. But among the redwoods is the 
 noblest music of all, different from that of any other trees. 
 And only think, yesterday I hardly believed they could be 
 taller and grander than some of the others I had seen, all 
 those great conifers that would have been gods hi Greece! 
 Even this morning, driving through forests that line the 
 way to the Sequoias, I still believed that poor me ! The 
 big sugar-pines and the yellow-pines loomed so huge, 
 towering above delicate birches and a hundred other lovely 
 creatures, which they guarded as Eastern men guard the 
 beauties of their harems. But the moment I saw the two 
 first giants the 'Sentinels' stand on the threshold of 
 their palace, or cathedral, whichever it is (but it's both, 
 and more) I knew how mistaken I'd been about the others. 
 These are super-trees. 
 
 "We drove on slowly, along a wide aisle paved with 
 gold and sprinkled with gold-dust. The pillars holding 
 up the sky-roof are fluted deeply and regularly; and they 
 are rose-red, these tree columns, seeming to glow with 
 inward fire the never-dying fire of life which , keeps 
 their hearts alive when common trees perish. Theirs is no 
 ruined cathedral or palace. All is perfect now, as in its 
 beginning; walls and dome of blue which can never 
 crumble; and the doors are never shut, though jealousy 
 guarded by the Sentinels. 
 
 "In some of the trees are shrines. At first glance they 
 appear to be empty shrines, but they are not empty, 
 really. What one finds there depends upon one's self. I
 
 310 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 wish I could live in this palace for weeks. I should 
 make wonderful discoveries. 
 
 "In old houses, whose roofs are supported by great 
 beams of oak, I know they call the stoutest and most 
 important the 'king beam, ' for without him the roof would 
 fall. Just so, the Grizzly Giant is the king tree of the 
 Mariposa Forest. There are other trees more beautiful 
 and graceful, yet he is indisputably, undisputedly king, 
 among lesser royalties and royal highnesses. All are 
 crowned. These Sequoias aren't clothed with green, like 
 other trees, but crowned with it, having also, here and 
 there upon their breasts, green decorations and medals. 
 Their bark folds and drapes them in mantles of royal 
 purple, and their high crowns mingle gold with green. 
 The Grizzly Giant's crown is of a strange shape, and very 
 wonderful. He is alive, and looks at you, but he does not 
 wish you to know that; so, if you are too curious, he 
 often pretends to be a castle, ornamented with quantities 
 of fantastic gargoyles. The castle has a theatre, into 
 which you can see; and it is fitted up with extraordinary 
 scenery. There is a museum of strange statues, too; 
 headless torsos, and arms thicker through than a man is 
 long. 
 
 "The princes and princesses, who are the Grizzly 
 Giant's family and help him reign over his subjects, have 
 to go and stand at a good distance, or they would lose their 
 majesty in comparison with him. When we had left the 
 horses (near a f ascintating log-cabin in the woods) , and Mr. 
 Hilliard had arranged for their comfort, we walked about, 
 picking out the princes and princesses and knowing quite 
 well from the look of them which was which. Some of
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY 311 
 
 the trees are commandingly masculine; others, though as 
 immense, graciously feminine. 
 
 "It sounds rather confusing to call the trees sometimes 
 columns of a cathedral or palace, sometimes royal people; 
 but any one who has come to visit them even once would 
 understand. If I were to be here longer, I should see them 
 in a great many other different phases, I'm sure. And I 
 may perhaps see them again. But nothing will ever be the 
 same. I have had such thoughts to-day! I wanted to 
 put each idea, small and big, on paper, to remember; 
 but I find that they won't let themselves be written down. 
 They are as intangible as the incense in this cathedral, 
 as impossible to put in black and white as it would be to 
 jot down in notes the music that pours out from the pipes 
 of the unseen organ, or to paint the light that streams 
 through the cathedral windows. And what a magical 
 light it is ! There are other trees in this forest, besides the 
 Sequoias; but it is on the redwoods alone that the light 
 concentrates, just as limelight is turned upon the leading 
 characters of a stage drama. They burn with their own 
 ruddy fire, while their neighbour trees (overgrown with 
 golden-green moss that makes sleeves for outstretched 
 arms, and gold embroidery for dark drapery) gleam out 
 among the redwoods' flaming pillars like lighted candela- 
 bra. I shall see those 'lights behind my eyelids to-night, as 
 I saw the sunset light on Stonehenge; the moon touching 
 the Giralda of Seville; and my first alpenglow. But what 
 Stonehenge is to England, the Giralda to Spain, and the 
 Alps to Switzerland, that, I think, is the Mariposa Forest 
 of giant Sequoias to California. 
 
 "If I had been an atheist, I believe I should suddenly
 
 312 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 have been taught the lesson of God among the great red- 
 woods. And nobody could be heavy-hearted here, or 
 frivolous. I feel that the same light which burns like fire 
 in these trees burns in my veins; a vast wave of life, 
 vitalizing all creation and making it kin. I am a poor 
 relation of these wonderful giants. Also I am a cousin of 
 the robins and chipmunks that shared our picnic luncheon, 
 and the dinner we finished a little while ago. I am nearer 
 than I was yesterday to all humanity, and to " 
 
 Angela's pencil stopped its weaving back and forth 
 across the small white pages, pausing as if of its own 
 accord. She looked at the last words she had written and 
 shut the book. Yes, she was near to all humanity; but 
 nearer than any to one who was all the world to her. 
 Suddenly she felt, with poignant intensity, the nearness 
 not only of his body to hers, but the nearness of their 
 souls. Her spirit and his touched in the silence of the 
 forest. She did not look at him yet, but she knew that he 
 was looking at her, and that his heart was in the look, 
 calling to hers. And she could not shut her ears to the call. 
 
 So she sat for a long moment, her eyes clinging for 
 safety to the little volume in her hands. Her fingers pressed 
 it tightly, almost spasmodically, and upon them she 
 seemed to feel, even to see, Nick Hilliard's hands, brown 
 and strong. It was only her fancy; but it was not fancy 
 that they burned to clasp hers. She felt that longing of 
 his, so vital, so passionate, creating the picture it desired. 
 Always before, when the thought had flashed into her 
 mind, "He is beginning to love me," she had thrust it 
 away, shutting her mind against it. But that was before 
 her spirit was keyed to the high music of river and forest
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY 313 
 
 in the Yosemite Valley. Since then she had passed from 
 the twilight of little society shams and convenient, con- 
 ventional self-deceivings into the glory where only Truth 
 was visible or audible. 
 
 At last she was forced to lift her eyes, compelled by his. 
 She tried to look past him, straight into the sunset, a fur- 
 nace that burned up human misgivings. But her gaze 
 was stopped on the way by Hilliard's. 
 
 "May I read what you've written?" he asked. 
 
 " Yes," she said, and gave him the book. While he read, 
 she drew in deep breaths, gathering strength against an 
 emergency, if an emergency w r ere to come. But she hoped 
 it would not. She wanted, oh, so much! to keep him for 
 a comrade for the comrade who had made this day the 
 best day of her life. She did not want to stop playing, be- 
 cause if it had come to earnest, deep realities, as she was 
 afraid it must come now, there w r ould be no place for Nick 
 Hilliard in her future the future of Paolo di Serene's 
 disillusioned wife. " Still, here under these trees, I could 
 tell him everything better than I could tell it anywhere 
 else, and make him understand, and even forgive," she 
 thought. " Without fear, I could let him know that I care 
 for him, and that he has been the only man, except father, 
 who has meant anything great to the real me. Almost, 
 I wish he would speak if he does love me. And I know 
 he does." 
 
 But he lay reading the fancies she had written about 
 the forest, and she could not guess how he was summoning 
 his courage, as a general, surprised, summons his forces 
 to battle. She did not know how deep was his humility 
 in thoughts of her, any more than she realized how utterly
 
 314 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 her first point of view had changed toward him, the 
 "forest creature," the "interesting, picturesque figure." 
 So entirely was he a man, and the one man, that she had 
 forgotten her old impersonal frame of mind. 
 
 He came to the last sentence in the book, broken short, 
 where her pencil had stopped of itself. 
 
 "Thank you," he said. "I'm glad you feel those things 
 about the forest. It's always been like that to me 
 sacred. If anything great and wonderful were to happen, 
 I'd rather have it happen here than anywhere else. Would 
 you?" 
 
 Yes, it was coming ! Suddenly she hah* wanted it to 
 come this crisis in their lives; yet something made her 
 push it away, just for a little while; not to have the end 
 quite so soon, no matter how beautiful an end. 
 
 "Oh, wait!" she exclaimed. "Don't let's talk of our- 
 selves yet not for a few minutes. Wait with me, and 
 neither of us will say one word till the sun has set and the 
 light has changed." 
 
 "Till the light has changed," Nick echoed, a shadow 
 falling over his face. He raised himself higher on his 
 elbow, his shoulder still touching her foot, and they 
 looked toward the west. 
 
 The forest seemed to have been lit up for some great re- 
 ligious festival. Each towering tree was a Titanic candle, 
 with a flame at the top, against the far-off sky. The deep- 
 red, fluted trunks gleamed with a pale luminous rose, and 
 long straight avenues of fire-dust stretched away to the 
 end of the world. A flood of golden flame poured through 
 the forest, like a tidal wave out of the sun. Then came an 
 ebb, a pause. The wave receded. A faint purple haze,
 
 THE BROKEN MELODY 315 
 
 like smoke from burning heliotropes, crept along the 
 ground. The torch of sunset broke into a million stars; 
 blazing golden spiders swung from glittering webs among 
 the treetops; the melting crowns of the redwoods dripped 
 rubies. Red meteors fell and burst, and the wild glory 
 faded suddenly into a subdued, reminiscent glow. It 
 was as if a cupful of ruddy wine had been drunk at a gulp, 
 leaving but a few drops to stain the crystal. The rosy 
 radiance ran along the horizon, and al that lived of the 
 sunset clung to the far edge of the world or caught the 
 gold horns of the Grizzly Giant's crown, which, like a high 
 mountain summit, could hold the light of day while night 
 purpled the plain below. 
 
 All day a concert of birds had filled the upper chambers 
 of the trees with silver pipings, but now not a bird voice 
 spoke. There was silence, except for a faint mysterious 
 stirring, as of dryads beginning to wake and dress for their 
 night-flitting when a moonbeam should tap on their shut 
 doors. The lilac haze floated up from the ground, and 
 slowly, very slowly, turned to silver touched with rose. 
 Like a veil it spread among the trees tangling among their 
 sharp branches, its lacy mesh tearing, to leave dark jagged 
 holes. But unseen hands mended the rent and wove the 
 veil into a curtain that screened the distance and was 
 pinned up with stars. 
 
 The whole forest rustled with mystery in the strange 
 pulsing luminance that was neither sunset nor moonrise, 
 but the memory of one, and a hope of the other the 
 kind of light that a blind man might see in dreams. 
 
 "Now Angela," Nick half whispered, in awe at the 
 name on his lips, the name of a goddess uttered by a
 
 316 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 mortal. (Extra hazard ! extra hazard !) At last he 
 laid his hand on hers, warm and close, and her lips opened 
 to break the spell, when a voice called to Nick in the dis- 
 tance : 
 
 "Nick! Nick Milliard, where are you?" 
 
 Angela drew away quickly, the spell broken indeed. 
 He sprang to his feet, his face, that had been pale, flushing. 
 
 "It's Mrs. Gaylor's voice," he said, astonished and 
 incredulous, as if at the call of a ghost.
 
 XXVI 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN 
 
 CARMEN had been following from San Francisco, a 
 day late, because once, in losing the trail, she had lost 
 twenty-four hours. To-day she had arrived at Wawona 
 in the afternoon, and learning that Mr. Nickson Hilliard 
 had gone to the Mariposa Grove, she asked for a carriage 
 to take her there too. 
 
 "You'll reach the woods just about the time he's coming 
 away," she was advised. "He ought to be back by tea 
 o'clock at latest, maybe earlier." But Carmen insisted. 
 She could not wait. Business made it neceassary for her to 
 see Mr. Hilliard as soon as possible, without wasting a 
 moment. She looked sallow and hollow-eyed; for she had 
 been travelling hard. Long ago now she had put away 
 her widow's weeds; yet in the warm June sunlight she 
 had the aspect of a mourner. It was as if she had drunk 
 the blackness of night, and it ran in her veins. In full 
 sunshine she seemed to bleed shadow. 
 
 The name of Gaylor was well known in California; and 
 here at Wawona far from the Gaylor ranch as it was 
 those with whom she spoke were aware of her importance. 
 Carmen had no fear that she would be gossiped about and 
 misunderstood. She was Mrs. Eldridge Gaylor, the rich 
 widow of old Grizzly Gaylor. Every one knew that Nick 
 
 317
 
 318 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Hilliard, of Lucky Star Gusher fame, had been her hus- 
 band's foreman, and that the land which had made his for- 
 tune had been sold to him by her. No one would doubt her 
 or laugh behind her back when she stated that the need of 
 a business discussion with Hilliard was pressing. People 
 would think that perhaps another gusher had started into 
 being, or that some question of investments must be 
 decided. But even if her coming "made talk," Carmen 
 was in no mood to care. In her mind a searchlight shone 
 fiercely upon three figures: her own, Nick Hilliard's, 
 Angela May's. Others were as shadows. A buckboard 
 and horses, with a good driver, were found for Mrs. Gay lor 
 after a slight delay. But she had been wandering on foot 
 among the great redwoods for hah* an hour when Nick 
 heard her voice calling his name. 
 
 Mrs. May had not been mentioned at the hotel. Carmen 
 had been informed simply that Mr. Hilliard was showing a 
 friend through the forest, and that they had gone out in 
 the morning with the intention of staying to see the sun- 
 set. But Carmen had found in the visitor's book the 
 name of "Mrs. May and maid. ' She had been cer- 
 tain of finding them there, for she knew only too well that 
 all three, with a "black cat for luck," had left San Fran- 
 cisco together. 
 
 Every day since Theo Dene had told her of Angela May's 
 existence she had "cut the cards," and had invariably 
 come upon a "fair woman" close to the King of Hearts. 
 Madame Vestris also had seen the "fair woman" in the 
 crystal, and had described her. "She is beautiful and 
 young, and stands in the sunshine," said the seeress, in 
 whose visions Carmen had implicit faith; "but suddenly
 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN 319 
 
 she is blotted out of my sight, as if by a dark cloud that 
 swallows her up." 
 
 "Does she come back iato the crystal?" Carmen had 
 asked, eagerly. 
 
 " No. I can see you now. But she doesn't come back." 
 
 "And Nick? Do you find him?" 
 
 Madame Vestris knew very well who "Nick" was. 
 During the last three or four years she had replied to a 
 great many questions about Nick Hilliard, and her answers 
 had brought her a goodly number of ten-dollar bills. For 
 crystal-gazing her charge was ten dollars: with a trance 
 in addition, twenty-five. 
 
 "I see a man standing beside you. But he is in deep 
 shadow. I can't make out who it is." 
 
 Carmen revived. " It must be Nick. There's no other 
 man I can think of I would let come near me." 
 
 When she called to Hilliard in the Mariposa Grove, and 
 his answering call told her where to look, Carmen was even 
 more anxious to see what Mrs. May was like than to meet 
 Nick himself, though it seemed years since the night when 
 she bade him good-bye, full of hope, believing he would 
 come back to her. 
 
 The two were standing under the Grizzly Giant when 
 she came up to them, Nick a few steps in advance, because 
 he had started to meet his old friend, and a sickly pang 
 shot through Carmen's heart as she saw Angela, tall and 
 white in the rose-and silver twilight. She had to admit 
 the enemy's beauty; and with a sharp stab of pain she 
 remembered Nick's description of "the angel of his 
 dreams." Yes, this white, slender creature was like a 
 man's idea of an angel. Here was Nick's ideal made
 
 320 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 human. Carmen wished that the Grizzly Giant might fall 
 on the angel and crush her to death, a lingering death of 
 agony; because nothing less could satisfy a woman's 
 longing for revenge. Nor was death enough to atone 
 Carmen would have chosen to see Angela die disfigured, so 
 that Nick should remember her hideous through the years 
 to come. Desiring this eagerly, and all other evils, Mrs. 
 Gaylor was, nevertheless, polite and pleasant to Mrs. May. 
 She came out from the tragic shadow which had enveloped 
 her like a mourning mantle, and wondered at herself, hear- 
 ing the sweet tones of her own voice. She began by ex- 
 plaining to Nick that she had not been well; that her 
 doctor had recommended her to try a change of air, and 
 that she had thought of the Yosemite. "I've always 
 wanted to see the valley ever since you came back and 
 talked so much about it," she went on. 
 
 "Then, when I got to Wawona I heard you were there. 
 I was surprised! Do you realize, you only wrote to me 
 once, and never told me any of your plans? I should have 
 thought you were in New York to this day if I hadn't run 
 up to the Falconers' place on the McCloud River not 
 very long ago, and found out that you'd been hi Santa 
 Barbara. I suppose this lady is Mrs. May, a friend of 
 that fascinating Miss Dene? She, or some of the people 
 up there, told me that you'd promised to show her round 
 California." 
 
 As Carmen waited to be introduced, she glanced sharply 
 from one to the other, to see if they looked self-conscious, 
 but they wore an air of innocence that made Carmen long 
 to strike Nick and trample on the woman. How dared 
 they act as if she had no right to resent their being here
 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN 321 
 
 together? Yet she did not want them to know, just now, 
 that she did resent it. 
 
 Angela was almost as keenly interested in Carmen as 
 Carmen was in her; and though Mrs. Gaylor was not at her 
 best, she was excited; her eyes shone, and dusk softened 
 her hard look of fatigue. Angela thought Nick's old friend 
 one of the handsomest women she had ever seen. Also, 
 she was jealous, more sharply and consciously jealous than 
 when Theo Dene had gossiped about Mrs. Gaylor and 
 Nick Hilliard, on the way back from Santa Barbara 
 Mission. Angela had never before known the sting of 
 jealousy; had never thought, till that day, that she could 
 feel so mean a passion; yet now she suffered as Nick once 
 had suffered, and was ashamed to suffer. 
 
 A few minutes ago she had been sure that Hilliard loved 
 her, and she had keyed herself to tell him nobly why he 
 must forget her, why she must forget him. But, having seen, 
 Carmen, she began to wonder if Nick did care, and whether 
 after all, he had meant to speak of his love, here in the 
 forest. Perhaps she had been conceited, and mistaken 
 about his feelings. Maybe Nick had merely been chivalrous 
 and kind, like all California men, and wanted nothing of her 
 except friendship. Maybe if he had meant to tell her any- 
 thing, it had been about this beautiful Mrs. Gaylor. 
 
 Nick introduced them to each. other, rather shyly and 
 formally, and they were both extremely polite, even com- 
 plimentary. Carmen said that she hoped Mrs. May 
 wouldn't think it very queer of her, hurrying out to meet 
 Mr. Hilliard the moment she heard he was near. Of 
 course, she might have waited for him to come back to Wa- 
 wona, they said he would be back by ten. But she was
 
 322 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 so impulsive! And she had wished to see the redwoods by 
 sunset and moonrise. She knew Mr. Hilliard wouldn't 
 want to bother about bringing her here next day, after he 
 had just seen the trees himself, and for the second time, 
 too. This had been too good a chance to lose. The trees 
 were wonderful, weren't they? Would Mrs. May and 
 Nick mind stopping a little longer now that she had come, 
 and letting her see the moon rise? There was a sort of 
 quiver over the sky as if it would appear soon. 
 
 All three sat down, but not in the place where Nick and 
 Angela had sat together. He could not have endured that. 
 While Carmen talked and the others answered when they 
 must the moon-dawn came; and never would the 
 Princess di Sereno forget the drift of stars behind the 
 trees, and the fleecy moon-surf that beat on the high 
 branches. Yet the music of the forest was silent for her, 
 and the charm was broken. 
 
 "What are you going to do to-morrow?" Carmen asked. 
 And Angela answered before Nick could speak: "Oh, my 
 trip is over. There's nothing more to do but to go back 
 by a different way, of course. I have still to see Inspiration 
 Point, of which I've heard so much. I'm looking forward 
 to that." 
 
 "When you say 'go back,' do you mean San Francisco 
 or the East?" Carmen tried to make her voice sound 
 indifferent, though polite. 
 
 "To San Francisco, for a while. I'm not going East, I 
 hope. I've bought land near Monterey. I mean to build 
 and make a home for myself in California." 
 
 Carmen's one lingering hope died. She had thought it 
 just possible that this affair had been a travelling flirtation;
 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN 323 
 
 that Nick, though infatuated, would return to his old 
 allegiance when this witch-light, this will-o'-the-wisp, this 
 love pirate, had gone. But the love pirate intended to 
 drop anchor in California waters, it seemed! Luckily for 
 Carmen that the daylight had faded. Changes on a 
 woman's face, if bent a little, could not be seen in the dusk. 
 
 " I wish you'd give me a chance to prove that California 
 women are just as glad as California men to be nice to 
 strangers," she went on. "Your home isn't ready yet, so 
 you've nothing to tie you down. Won't you come and see 
 my home? It's very pretty, if I do say so myself; and it 
 might give you one or two ideas. Try and help me persuade 
 her, Nick. You see, Mrs. May, I feel almost as if I knew 
 you. They could talk of nobody else at Rushing River 
 Camp! And meeting you in this wonderful forest makes 
 me sure we ought to be friends, as if it was meant, you 
 know." 
 
 "You're very kind," said Angela, feeling distinctly 
 guilty, because she did not like Carmen, and admired her 
 only because she could not help it. 
 
 "I told you Mrs. Gaylor would want you to come to her 
 house!" exclaimed Nick, trying to be cordial and forget 
 his bitter disappointment. 
 
 He too was feeling guilty. He had been even more sorry 
 than surprised to see Carmen, and wished her a hundred 
 miles away. Something told him that, if she had not 
 interrupted him just at the critical moment, when hour 
 and place and mood had seemed propitious, Angela would 
 have been kind. Such a moment as Carmen Gaylor had 
 spoiled might never come again. But he felt that he was 
 cruel and ungrateful to his loyal friend, his benefactress.
 
 324 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 It was not her fault, he reminded himself, that she had 
 appeared at the wrong time. She could not have guessed 
 that he loved Mrs. May. He ought to be flattered because 
 poor Carmen had started out to meet him in the forest, 
 instead of waiting at Wawona. The sound of her voice, 
 with its deep contralto, reminded him how much he owed 
 'to Mrs. Gay lor. Her friendship and generosity had made 
 him rich. If it had not been for her he would never have 
 owned or been able to sell the Lucky Star gusher. And, 
 after all, there would be other moments. Because Mrs. 
 Gaylor had inadvertently robbed him of this chance with 
 Angela, there was no reason to feel so gloomily sure that he 
 would never have another. He would make one for him- 
 self ! And now here was his kind friend, inviting Mrs. May 
 to visit her, mostly to please him, of course. How like 
 her! If only his angel would accept, he might be able to 
 "cross the dead line" by and by, in his own country, and 
 that would be the next best after the Mariposa Forest. 
 
 Carmen bit her lip. So they had talked her over to- 
 gether, these two, and Nick had told this woman that she 
 would be invited to visit the Gaylor ranch! Well, she 
 would let them believe that she was good-naturedly playing 
 into their hands. She wanted, yet hated, to have them 
 think that. 
 
 "Why, of course, Nick knows how delighted I am to 
 get pleasant visitors," she forced herself to say. "I 
 haven't many and I get few other pleasures. I'm 
 awfully lonesome on my big ranch. Come for as long as 
 you can but even a few days will be better than nothing, 
 if you can't spare more. Nick can show you his gusher 
 or rather the gusher that was his; and Lucky Star City,
 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN 325 
 
 which you'll think queer and interesting, I expect, just as 
 Nick does though it seems vulgar and hideous to me. 
 By the way, Nick, there's a new school-teacher at Lucky 
 Star. Oh, there's lots of news since you went away! 
 I shall have heaps to tell you. Won't you come and visit 
 me, and be shown around by Nick, Mrs. May?" 
 
 Angela was torn between several emotions, none of 
 which she was able clearly to define. If she refused, it 
 might seem ungracious, because already, half in earnest, 
 half in play, she had partly promised Nick to go some time 
 and have a glimpse of Lucky Star ranch and city. Yet, 
 less than ever did she wish to be indebted for hospitality 
 to Mrs. Gaylor. 
 
 "Could I go for a day?" she inquired. 
 
 "You could for two days and a night," said Carmen, "if 
 you couldn't give us more time. You see, you'd have to 
 travel all night from San Francisco to Bakersfield, or rather 
 to Kern which is the same thing. And my place is a 
 good long drive from there, even in a motor, which I could 
 easily hire." 
 
 "You needn't do that. I've bought one," Nick cut in 
 eagerly. " She's in San Francisco. I was looking forward 
 to showing her to you. But now I can do better. If Mrs. 
 May consents, I'll ship the auto by train in advance and 
 send the shuvver my assistant, I mean on ahead, so 
 as to look the car over and see that she's ready to run us all 
 out to your ranch after we arrive at Bakersfield in the 
 morning. Now, aren't you surprised at my news, Mrs. 
 Gaylor that I've got an automobile of my own? Or 
 did they tell you that, among other things, at River 
 Camp?"
 
 326 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Yes, they told me," answered Carmen, with the same 
 praiseworthy calmness which she had been admiring in 
 herself, and wondering at, as if it were a marvellous per- 
 formance on the stage by an actress. 
 
 "Anyhow, I expect my yellow car will excite more 
 interest at Lucky Star than a new schoolmistress," said 
 Nick, laughing, almost light-hearted again. But he did 
 not give more than a thought to the schoolmistress. Of 
 what possible importance could she be to him? 
 
 "Will you run over from Kern to the Gay lor ranch in his 
 yellow car?" asked Carmen, softly and kindly, seeing that 
 the enemy hesitated. 
 
 "Yes thank you both. I will go," Angela said. 
 
 "Then I'm rewarded for my long drive this afternoon." 
 And indeed Carmen felt rewarded. She thought of the 
 crystal, and how Madame Vestris had seen the "fair 
 woman" blotted out of the sunshine by a dark cloud. 
 And after that she had not come into Ihe crystal again. 
 Carmen had been there with a man standing by her side. 
 
 "But what should I have done if the hateful creature 
 had refused to visit me?" Carmen thought. "Everything 
 depended on that." 
 
 Next day they took the long drive together, Mrs. Gaylor, 
 Angela, and Nick, and Angela's maid for Carmen had 
 not brought Mariette to the Yosemite. Mariette was too 
 talkative, and had been sent home from San Francisco. 
 Carmen did not wish Nick to find out how hurried this 
 journey of hers had been lest he should suspect that it was 
 made in quest of him ! She wanted him to believe that she 
 had been travelling leisurely for the benefit of her health, 
 as she had taken pains to explain.
 
 AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN 327 
 
 Nothing could spoil the azure mystery of Inspiration 
 Point: nothing could dim the brightness of the Bridal 
 Veil, seen from a new point of view. So near that a strong 
 wind might have driven the spray into their faces, they 
 saw the white folds of the waterfalls, embroidered with 
 rainbows, and the dark rocks behind its rushing flood, 
 stained deep red, and gold and blue, as if generations of 
 rainbows had dried there. Nothing could stifle the thrill 
 of that wild drive, down steep roads that tied themselves 
 ribbonlike, round the mountain-side, and seemed to 
 flutter, as ribbons might flutter, over precipices. Yet the 
 magic of four days ago was dead. Carmen, sitting between 
 Nick and Angela, had killed it. Neither rivers nor trees 
 sang their old song; and the white witch of the Bridal. 
 Veil had turned her face away.
 
 XXVII 
 SIMEON HARP 
 
 NICK'S detective in San Francisco had no news; at 
 all events no news with which he could be induced to 
 part. "Wait a few days longer," he said. "That's 
 the only favour I ask. Maybe by that time we shall both 
 know where the poison-oak came from, who posted the box, 
 who sent it, and why, and all the rest there is to know." 
 
 "Haven't you any suspicions yet?" Nick asked im- 
 patiently. 
 . "I don't go so far as to say that." 
 
 "What that you have, or you haven't?" 
 
 "That I haven't." 
 
 "You mean you do suspect some one?" 
 
 "Well, my mind's beginning to hover." 
 
 "Tell me where." 
 
 "No. I won't tell you that, Mr. Hilliard." 
 
 "You won't " 
 
 "Not while I'm hovering. Not till there's something 
 to light on. I may be doing an innocent person a big 
 injustice." 
 
 And Nick could squeeze no more hints from Max Wisler. 
 Herein lay one secret of the man's success; he had his 
 own methods, and no one could persuade or bribe him to 
 depart from them. This caused him to be respected. And
 
 SIMEON HARP 329 
 
 Nick had to leave San Francisco with Mrs. Gaylor and 
 Angela, tingling with unsatisfied curiosity. Mrs. May had 
 forbidden him to speak to Carmen of the mysterious box, 
 having grown sensitive on the subject. More than once 
 she had asked herself if it were possible that some one 
 very, very far away some one whose photograph was in 
 the Illustrated London News hated her enough to do her 
 an injury: some one she had believed to be completely 
 indifferent in these days. The thing savoured of the Latin 
 mind, she could not help thinking, rather than the Anglo- 
 Saxon. Perhaps Princess di Sereno was not quite for- 
 gotten in Italy, after all. And Mrs. May could imagine a 
 motive, for in San Francisco she had been able to find a 
 duplicate of that illustrated paper. There were three 
 photographs in it: one rather bad one of herself, taken 
 years ago in Rome; one of Paolo, dressed as an aeronaut; 
 and one of a certain handsome young woman, very be- 
 comingly dressed to accompany the Prince for a flight in 
 his new aeroplane. 
 
 Angela was not happy in this expedition to the Gaylor 
 ranch, though she reassured herself from time to time, by 
 saying that it was better to accept than refuse the invita- 
 tion; and she was to be Mrs. Gaylor's guest only for a 
 day, part of another, and one night. Still, she was vaguely 
 troubled. The warm consciousness of being surrounded 
 by kindness which had made the California sunshine 
 doubly bright, was chilled. This visit would be like other 
 visits which she had made in the past, before she was " Mrs. 
 May, whom nobody knows." In Rome, in Paris, in 
 London, Princess di Sereno had been obliged sometimes 
 to go to houses of women whom she disliked or distrusted,
 
 330 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 and to have them in hers. Such obligations had been part 
 of the inevitable disagreeableness of daily existence for the 
 wife of Paolo di Sereno; but going to Mrs. Gaylor was the 
 first false note in the music of this free, new world. Angela 
 consoled herself by thinking of Lucky Star Ranch. 
 She would like to see Nick Hilliard's home. 
 
 "Simeon, she's here," said Carmen, in a low voice, to 
 the old squirrel poisoner. 
 
 They stood together in the grove of bamboos, where 
 they had talked about Nick, and about "old Grizzly 
 Gaylor," on the May night when Nick was leaving for 
 New York. Counting by time, that was not long ago. 
 But Carmen's whole outlook on life was changed. She 
 felt and looked years older. 
 
 "That's all right then, my lady," Simeon Harp answered. 
 "The whole thing's all right. Don't you worry." 
 
 "Oh, I do worry. Every minute I'm in hell," she 
 groaned. "Oh, Simeon, what will become of me? " 
 
 "You'll be happy, and marry the man you love, my 
 lady," the old man soothed her, the red-rimmed eyes, which 
 had once been handsome, sending out a faint gleam of the 
 one emotion that still burned in the ashes of his wrecked 
 soul: devotion to the woman who had saved his life, 
 who had given him a roof and food, and above all 
 drink. 
 
 "I can never be happy again, whatever happens," 
 Carmen said, with anguish. "He loves some one else. 
 He doesn't care for me." 
 
 "He'll learn to care. This slip of a thing that's come 
 between you and 'im, my lady, will fly away out of his
 
 SIMEON HARP 331 
 
 mind like a bit of thistledown. When I'm done with her 
 she's got rid of for good." 
 
 "Oh, but the horror of it the getting rid of her! It 
 don't weaken one bit, Simeon. I've brought her here for 
 that, just that, and it shall be done. In some moods, for a 
 minute or two, I rejoice in the thought of it. I want it. 
 I'd even like to be there and see. Madame Vestris says 
 that in my last incarnation I was a Roman Empress 
 that I used to go to the gladiator shows, and turn my thumb 
 down, as a sign that the wounded ones who failed in the 
 fight were to be killed by their conquerors in the arena. 
 And that, once when I hated a Christian girl, I went to 
 see her killed by lions. She Madame Vestris watched 
 the whole scene in her crystal. Very likely it's true, 
 what she says. I believe in her. She's wonderful. But 
 I'm softer in this incarnation than in the last, I guess. It 
 frightens me and turns me sick when I think how I shall 
 dream and wake up nights afterward even if I'm 
 married to Nick. Oh, it's awful! But it's the only way. 
 He was meant for me! He's mine. She'll have to go. 
 And I don't care how much I suffer, if only I have him for 
 my husband in the end." 
 
 "You'll have him," said Simeon Harp. "It's going to 
 be. And there ain't no need for you to dream bad dreams. 
 You ain't doing the thing. It's me. It was me thought 
 of it . It's me who'll carry it out." 
 
 "Supposing you fail?" she whispered. 
 
 "I won't, if you'll do your part. Just the little part, 
 my lady; we can't get on without your doin'. You send 
 her there, to the right place; that's all. For the rest you 
 can count on me."
 
 332 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Oh!" Carmen shuddered, and put her hands before 
 her face. "To think it's for to-day to-day! If only 
 the other thing had gone through all right, and she'd been 
 made so hideous that he couldn't look at her, this horror 
 might have been saved. I'd have wanted no more. Once 
 he'd seen her face, that he thinks so angelic, red, and 
 swollen and hardly human, he could never have felt the 
 same toward her again. And it wouldn't have hurt her 
 much in the end. But evidently she isn't the kind that's 
 affected by that stuff. I know there are some who aren't. 
 Those two haven't spoken about the box to me, Simeon. 
 I was afraid at first Nick might suspect, and be watching. 
 But that's nonsense, of course. And she wouldn't be here 
 now if the idea had crossed his mind." 
 
 "Nobody'll ever know," said Simeon. "I went such a 
 long way. I changed trains three tunes and walked miles 
 in between. Besides, when I posted the box I was wearin' 
 something different from what I ever wear here. I was 
 another man to look at." 
 
 " Oh, yes, I'm sure you did your part well," Carmen said 
 quickly. "It was Fate interfered. I felt it would. All 
 the cards near me were black just then. I don't know 
 what I should do without you, Simeon good old watch- 
 dog! You shall be rich the rest of your life if you win me 
 happiness." 
 
 "I've got all I want," the squirrel poisoner answered. 
 "It's a pleasure to me to serve you. You don't need to 
 offer no rewards, except to keep me near you, my lady, 
 and give me my bite and sup. You ought to know that by 
 this time anyhow -since a year ago." 
 
 "I know! And you're clever, as well as faithful. I
 
 SIMEON HARP 333 
 
 should never have thought of as good a way as as this. 
 No one could possibly prove it was anything but an 
 accident. Did you see her, Simeon? " 
 
 "Yes; I wasn't far off when Nick's big yeller automobile 
 spilt you both out at the door. To my idea, she ain't 
 nothing to you. I was never one for blondes." 
 
 "If you could see Nick's eyes when he looks at her! 
 Those are the times when I feel like the Roman Empress. 
 I was glad he wouldn't stay to lunch. Though I asked, I 
 don't think I could have stood having him. I'd have done 
 something desperate, maybe, and spoilt everything. She's 
 lying down now. I made her promise she would till half 
 an hour before lunch. Nick's coming for us, with his 
 auto, at five. He wanted it to be earlier, but I told him she 
 was tired, and it would be too hot for her to walk around 
 Lucky Star in the glare, where there aren't any trees. 
 It's all got to happen and be over with before five, Simeon. 
 She'll never see Nick's ranch she talks so much of." 
 Again Carmen shivered, and her eyes were wide and 
 staring, curiously glazed. She knew that she was looking 
 almost plain to-day, and had been actually terrified by 
 her own face in the glass before she came out to keep the 
 appointment with Simeon Harp. But it did not matter 
 what she looked like before Simeon. When Nick came 
 and saw her again next time there would be reason why 
 he would have no eyes for her. And later, when all this 
 was over, she would come back into her beauty again. 
 She must! 
 
 "What time are you having lunch, my lady?" Simeon 
 inquired in a matter-of-fact tone, his harsh voice sounding 
 just as usual.
 
 334 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "At one." 
 
 "And you'll send her out? " 
 
 "At half-past two." 
 
 "Right, my lady. That'll bring her to the place I 
 want about three or a little after." 
 
 "Yes. You're sure nothing can go wrong?" 
 
 "Sure as ever I was about a squirrel." 
 
 "Oh!" Carmen shivered, and turning away from 
 him without another word she went back to the house. 
 
 No one had seen them talking together; and even 
 if they had been seen it would not have mattered. Mrs. 
 Gaylor often chatted with the old squirrel poisoner, who 
 was known to be devoted to her; a harmless creature 
 who hurt nobody except himself and the squirrels.
 
 XXVIII 
 THE DARK CLOUD IN THE CRYSTAL 
 
 WHEN the musical gong sounded for luncheon, and 
 Carmen came down from her room at one o'clock, she 
 found her guest already in the garden, as lovely a garden 
 as Angela had seen in her sleep. For a minute Carmen 
 stood on a step of the brick terrace, looking at the slender 
 figure in white. Angela did not hear the faint rustling of 
 muslin. Her back was half turned to the house, and she 
 was watching the aerial architecture of the fountain, 
 delicate domes and pinnacles built of crystal. Carmen 
 thought reluctantly that Mrs. May looked very young in 
 her white frock, not more than eighteen or nineteen 
 She wondered if the love pirate enjoyed life very much, 
 and whether she really cared for Nick and wanted to marry 
 him or whether she was only flirting. Then the profile at 
 which Carmen had been gloomily gazing turned into a full 
 face. Angela smiled at Mrs. Gaylor. "You must have 
 hypnotized me," she said. "Suddenly I felt I was being 
 looked at by some one. Have you been taking a nap, 
 too?" 
 
 "No," said her hostess. "I knew I couldn't go to 
 sleep. I'm glad if you rested. You look very fresh." 
 
 Angela could not conscientiously return the compliment. 
 Mrs. Gaylor might have been travelling for a week instead 
 of one night. 
 
 335
 
 336 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Luncheon was in the pergola, where Carmen and Nick 
 had dined together the night he went away; the night 
 as she expressed it to herself of late when she had lost 
 him. Angela had never seen a more beautiful place, and 
 said so, trying to make conversation; for now that Nick 
 was not with them she felt ill at ease with Mrs. Gaylor. 
 "What a garden!" she exclaimed. "The other night in 
 the Yosemite I dreamed of just such a garden and I 
 think, at the end of the dream there was a woman in it 
 rather like you. You must be very happy here." 
 
 "Yes, I'm happy enough," said Carmen. "Oh! I 
 mustn't forget to tell you Nick came back. Did you 
 )iear his automobile? " 
 
 "No. I must have been asleep." 
 
 " I thought you were. Besides, your room's on the other 
 side of the house." 
 
 "It's beautifully quiet and cool. Did Mr. Hilliard 
 come to change the plan for this afternoon? " 
 
 "Yes. He turned round before getting home, because 
 he'd remembered something he had to do at six, something 
 important, business with the men who've bought his 
 gusher. They're to look at another one smaller, but 
 pretty good and see if they want to buy it too; a new 
 gusher that's burst out on the land Nick kept for his own. 
 So he thought perhaps we wouldn't mind going over to 
 look at the place a good deal earlier, after all, in spite of 
 the heat. He won't let you be exposed to the sun more 
 than he can help." 
 
 "I don't mind the heat, if you don't." said Angela. 
 
 "Oh, as for me, I'm half Spanish, you know. I'm like 
 a salamander. Nick'll come back between half-past two
 
 THE DARK CLOUD 337 
 
 and three soon after his lunch. He might almost as 
 well have stayed with us. But, of course, as he's been 
 away from home so long, he wants to have a look around 
 and be sure that everything's all right for a stranger to see. 
 I don't wonder! I told him we'd meet him at the east 
 gate. It's a short cut, and though it isn't much of a walk 
 for us, and is in shade over hah* the way, it cuts off more 
 than two miles of bad road for him road that's just 
 being made. I thought you'd rather like a stroll through 
 the bamboo grove, which everybody admires so much. 
 The only part of the walk that will be hot is going across 
 a bit of disused pasture land. But we'll take green- 
 lined parasols. I have a lot of them about the house, for 
 visitors. We ought to start by two-thirty; and by three- 
 fifteen, with the motor, we can be coming in sight of 
 the Lucky Star Gusher, like a huge black geyser. 
 You know Nick's land was once part of mine, so his 
 place is no distance, really. I hope you don't dislike 
 walking?" 
 
 "No, indeed. I'm very fond of it. I can easily do 
 ten miles." 
 
 "Well, you will have only a short mile to meet Nick 
 and his motor this afternoon. I dare say I shall pick up 
 a little by half -past two. I thought maybe lunch would 
 make me feel better, but it doesn't. Just the other way! 
 I can't eat. I've got one of the horrid headaches that 
 turn me almost into a lunatic once in a blue moon." 
 
 "I'm so sorry," said Angela. "Hadn't you better send 
 Mr. Hilliard word that we can't come to-day? You know, 
 there's most of to-morrow " 
 
 "Oh, no," Carmen broke in hastily. " I wouldn't disap-
 
 338 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 point him for anything in the world. A cup of black 
 coffee will do me good." 
 
 But apparently it had no such effect. And at two 
 o'clock Mrs. Gaylor said that she feared she must not 
 venture out, after all, in the hot sun. If she tried she 
 might faint, and that would be silly. "I'm so sorry, but 
 you'll have to go alone," she finished, "and when I've 
 had a little rest, I'll come after you in a carriage, in time 
 to bring you home. That will save Nick motoring here 
 and back, and give him a chance to keep his engagement 
 at six, with those men, and no danger of a breakdown with 
 his car. He might burst a tire on that stony road, you see, 
 and be delayed. Those men are important to him." 
 
 Angela was genuinely sympathetic, and strove to 
 regret that Mrs. Gaylor could not be with her. But she 
 could not feel as sorry as she wished to feel. There was a 
 spice of danger in being alone with Nick, danger that he 
 might take up the thread dropped in the Mariposa Forest 
 if, indeed, he really cared to take it up. That was the 
 question. Perhaps, even if he loved her, he would not 
 think it best to tell her so under his own roof, where she 
 would have to run away from him to escape, if she did not 
 choose to listen. Whether he loved her or not, it must 
 come to the same in the end. But she could not help 
 longing to know the truth. The one thing she did 
 already know was that she was deliciously frightened, 
 yet glad that she was to see Nick's ranch without Mrs. 
 Gaylor. 
 
 At half-past two she started out, Carmen giving her 
 explicit directions, which she could not mistake, because, 
 after passing through the bamboos, the way was straight
 
 THE DARK CLOUD 339 
 
 as far as that stretch of disused pasture land of which 
 mention had been made. 
 
 "You'll be in shade of the orange-trees till you come to 
 a big gate in a fence," Carmen explained. "Shut it after 
 you, please, because dogs might stray into the garden if 
 you left it open. No cattle graze on that part of the ranch 
 any more. They're going to irrigate there and to plant 
 alfalfa, the soil's likely to be so good. But I've been weak 
 enough to let gipsies camp on the place once or twice, and 
 there might be some there now, with their dogs and horses, 
 for all I know. As you go out of the gate you'll see a kind 
 of track worn in the grass; and all you've got to do is 
 to follow it for about three quarters of a mile, till you 
 come to a new road that's just been finished. When the 
 rest of it's made right, motors won't have any trouble 
 between Nick's ranch and mine." 
 
 Angela said that she understood her instructions per- 
 fectly, and took the green-lined parasol which her hostess 
 had found for her. Its outer covering was scarlet, and it 
 was rather big and heavy. Angela made up her mind that 
 she would not use it except for the hottest part of the walk, 
 going across the disused pasture land. 
 
 " You'll really be able to come on about five? " she asked. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I shall be a different woman by that time." 
 The contralto voice dropped oddly and suddenly with 
 these words: an effect of the headache, of course. And 
 the pallor of the dark face was almost ghastly. Angela 
 thought that her hostess looked very ill. "You may 
 expect me," Carmen finished. 
 
 "I know Mr. Hilliard would be disappointed if you 
 didn't come. Good-bye till five, then."
 
 340 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Good-bye." 
 
 Angela turned away; and Mrs. Gaylor, who had brought 
 her guest as far as the beginning of the bamboo grove 
 stood watching the white figure flit farther and farther 
 away, among the intricate green pillars of the temple. 
 Then, when the elusive form became ghostlike in the 
 distance, Carmen went back to the house. She walked 
 slowly and with dignified composure while it was possible 
 that she might be seen by some servant. But once in her 
 room, with the door locked, she tottered to the bedside 
 and flung herself down on her knees. 
 
 "O God O God!" she gasped, her face hidden. 
 Then, lifting her eyes, with a look of horror, she whispered, 
 "No, not God devil. He's the only one I can ever pray 
 to now." 
 
 Her eyes, glazed and staring, saw again the white figure 
 passing from sunshine into shadow. So it had been in 
 Madame Vestris's crystal. How soon would the dark 
 cloud blot it out of sight now and forever? 
 
 Angela had some difficulty in opening the gate that led 
 from an orange plantation into the disused pasture, for 
 the fence was high and strong, and the gate, apparently, 
 not often used. As for the pasture, it went billowing 
 away mile after mile, seemingly, though at a distance she 
 could see a wire fence, a long vanishing line. And beyond 
 that safety shut away by the wire, she was glad to think 
 a large number of cattle grazing. They were so far off 
 that their forms were all massed together, and they seemed 
 very quiet. Nevertheless, she was glad that a wire fence 
 separated them from her, for though she was not a coward 
 and would not have stopped now if there had been no
 
 THE DARK CLOUD 341 
 
 fence, there was something rather terrifying about a great 
 drove of cattle in a lonely place. 
 
 "They're much too far off to see my red-covered sun- 
 shade," she thought. "But even if they did see it, and 
 didn't like it, they wouldn't jump over a fence to get at 
 me, I suppose!" 
 
 She walked on, along the track worn by the passing of 
 feet, which had thinned and flattened the grass. She could 
 not see the new road of which Carmen had spoken, but she 
 must reach it sooner or later, going this way. For the 
 present, several low hills, like grass-sown waves, billowed 
 between her and it. But by and by, perhaps, she would 
 hear the " teuf-teuf " of Nick's motor coming along the new 
 road, to fetch her and Carmen. Would he be glad or 
 sorry when he found that she was alone? She hoped that 
 he would be glad, but Mrs. Gaylor was so beautiful that 
 it was hard to be sure. Suddenly, just as she reached the 
 top of one of the billowing hills and caught sight of a 
 rough road about hah* a mile away, she started at a sharp 
 sound like a shot. It seemed to come from the direction of 
 the cattle, and she turned to look toward them, vaguely 
 disturbed. As she looked, her unformed fears turned to 
 keen and definite terror. The shot, whether or no it had 
 struck one of their number, had, in an instant, stirred the 
 drove in panic. Their comfortable peace was broken. 
 Horns tossed, dark forms reared, and hoofs descended on 
 shining backs. A bull bellowed wildly. Others followed 
 suit. There was a dreadful roaring, and a rushing of hoofs 
 that sounded in Angela's horrified ears like the beginning 
 of an earthquake. The whole troop, hundreds of horned 
 heads and humpy backs, massed and seethed together.
 
 342 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 It was as if an irresistible force from behind impelled them 
 all forward in a pack. She stood still and watched the 
 black wave of cattle, fascinated, appalled, her heart 
 beating thickly. No, they could not stop now. Nothing 
 could stop them, except some great obstacle which they 
 could not pass. And, when they came to that obstacle, 
 many would be killed by others' trampling hoofs. They 
 would fall and die, and their brothers would beat them 
 down, not knowing, blind and mad and merciless. It 
 was a stampede. She had read of such things happening 
 among wild cattle in the West. Poor creatures, poor 
 stupid brutes, how sorry, how sickeningly sorry she was 
 for them! Who could have fired the shot, and why? 
 Men on horses were in sight now two, she thought 
 no, three, galloping fast, but far behind the drove. They 
 could do no good. Only the fence would stop the rush, 
 she told herself, through the poundings of her heart- 
 Then then it was as if a loud voice cried the ques- 
 tion in her ears Would the fence stop it ? 
 
 If not "May God help me! " she heard herself saying. 
 For an instant she stared at the oncoming black wave 
 which swept on, faster and faster toward her, so incredibly* 
 terribly fast now that in another second she knew they 
 would break down the line of wire fence. The cattle, those 
 that were not trampled to death, would soon pour through 
 the gap, would sweep on and on, overhwelming this hill 
 where she stood. 
 
 Strange, some lines of a poem were saying themselves in 
 Angela's head. She had read them lately, since she came 
 to America, the story of a stampede and a girl. Laska 
 yes, that was the name loved a man, and saved him
 
 THE DARK CLOUD 343 
 
 from the rush of wild cattle by covering his body with hers, 
 protecting it with her bleeding flesh from the blows of the 
 iron hoofs. 
 
 Nick had given her the book. She had been in a train 
 when she read the story of Laska. She saw herself sitting 
 safely and cosily in a stateroom, all panelled satinwood 
 and green velvet. Now 
 
 Blindly she started to run. It was useless, she knew, 
 for the fence was certain to go, and she could no more 
 outrun that black billow of death than she could outrace 
 one of Paolo di Serene's aeroplanes. Yet instinct made 
 her run toward the far-off road, away from the plunging, 
 bellowing cattle. She thought of Hilliard, and how he 
 would hate to hear of the death she had died. He 
 would give his life for hers, as Laska had given her 
 life for her lover.
 
 XXIX 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 
 
 JUST as Nick was finishing a somewhat hurried and 
 sketchy luncheon a telegram was handed to him. It 
 was from Max Wisler, the San Francisco detective, and it 
 said laconically, "Don't let A. M. visit C. G." 
 
 As Nick read, the blood rushed to his forehead, and he 
 sprang to his feet, knocking over the chair in which he had 
 been sitting. 
 
 Max Wisler had not been told by him that Mrs. May was 
 to visit Mrs. Gaylor; but that must be what he meant. It 
 had not occurred to Nick that it could be necessary to 
 mention Angela's brief stay, in telling Wisler that he him- 
 self was "running up to Lucky Star." The detective must 
 have found out in some ferreting way of his own. And 
 he had telegraphed, "Don't let A. M. visit C. G." 
 What could be his reason? Then suddenly a dread- 
 ful explanation flashed into Nick's head; flashed 
 there and stayed, as if printed in letters of blood on his 
 brain. 
 
 Wisler had been right after all. He had found out who 
 sent the box of poison oak. Those hateful questions of his, 
 so much resented, had been justified. There could be 
 no other explanation. Nothing else could excuse this 
 warning. It seemed too hideous to be true that Wisler had 
 
 344
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 345 
 
 telegraphed because there was danger for Angela, and 
 
 yet 
 
 Nick did not wait to finish out the sentence in his mind. 
 The Japanese servant, who was cook and valet and cham- 
 berman, had brought the telegram and the last luncheon 
 dish at the same time. Now he was providing Billy the 
 chauffeur with something to eat. But Nick did not wait 
 or even think about Billy. The engagement with Mrs. 
 Gaylor and Angela was for five o'clock, but that made no 
 difference to Nick, with the telegram in his hand. Knowing 
 what he knew for he did know now, as if he had seen all 
 Wisler's proofs he would not trust Angela alone with 
 Carmen for a single hour. He was going this instant to 
 snatch her away, with no matter what excuse. He would 
 think of something to satisfy Angela, for she must not find 
 out the truth if he could help it anyhow, not while she 
 was under Carmen's roof; it would shock and distress her 
 too much. The principal thing was to get her out of the 
 place quickly and quietly. As for Carmen he could 
 not decide yet how he should deal with Carmen. Loyal as 
 he was by nature, and as he had shown himself to Wisler, 
 modest as to his own deserts, and slow to fancy himself 
 valued by any woman, he could not now help seeing, as 
 Wisler had seen the one motive which could have tempted 
 Carmen Gaylor to send Angela May a box of poison-oak. 
 Many little things came back, in a flood of disturbing 
 memory; things to which Nick had attached no importance 
 at the time, or had misunderstood, owing to his humility, 
 where women were concerned, and his chivalrous, almost 
 exaggerated respect for his employer's wife and widow 
 the generous, disinterested friend that he had thought her.
 
 346 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "What a fool what a double-dyed fool!" he anathe- 
 matized himself, as he got the motor ready to start, while 
 Billy still ate apple-pie and cream on the kitchen veranda. 
 In spite of Wisler's catechism he had let Angela accept 
 Carmen's invitation, had even urged her to accept. If 
 anything hideous happened it would be his fault. But no, 
 surely nothing would happen. It was too bad to be true. 
 If Carmen had committed the crime of sending the poison- 
 oak, it must have been in a fit of madness, after hearing 
 things stupid things from Miss Dene. By this time 
 she must have repented. She could not be a woman and 
 harm a guest such a guest as Angela May and in her 
 own house. 
 
 And yet it was odd he had dimly thought it odd, even 
 in his ignorance that Carmen should have followed 
 them out to the Big Trees from Wawona, there to make a 
 "dead set" at Mrs. May. She had said that her choice of 
 the Yosemite for rest and change of air was a coincidence; 
 that she had not known he was hi the neighbourhood until 
 she heard the news at Wawona. But suddenly Nick 
 ceased to believe that story. She had gone because he 
 was there with Angela May. 
 
 As he thought these things he was starting the car, 
 getting into the car, driving the car away from the house, 
 to the Gaylor ranch. There was no bad patch of road. 
 That was an invention of Carmen's for the plausibility of 
 the plan she had sketched out to Angela. The road had 
 been finished months ago, and Nick flew along it in the 
 Bright Angel at a pace which might have got him into 
 trouble with the police if there had been any police to spy 
 upon him. The way ran through disused pasture land
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 347 
 
 which was to be irrigated, enriched, and grown with alfalfa; 
 and at a turn in the road he came upon a sight which 
 flashed to his eyes like a spurt of vitriol. He saw the wild 
 cattle break through the fence the new "bunch" which 
 Carmen had just got from Arizona. He saw them strug- 
 gling, and trampling each other down, and sweeping 
 through the gap like a wave through a broken dyke. He 
 saw a figure in white running toward him, and knew it was 
 Angela May knew that she must die unless he could be 
 in time to save her. 
 
 Nick turned the car, and sent it leaping off the road, to 
 bound over the rough hummocks, billowing under the 
 heat-baked grass. He looked like a dead man, with only his 
 eyesandhands his strong, firmhands alive. The motor 
 rocked on the green waves as if in a stormy sea, and groaned 
 like a wounded bull one of those who had died there at 
 the broken fence, with then* hearts' blood in their mouths. 
 
 It was almost on her now the wild black wave with 
 death in its wake and death in its gift; but he reached her 
 first, and leaning out while the car swerved as many a 
 time he had leaned from his galloping bronco hi cowboy 
 days, to pick up a hat or a handkerchief he caught 
 Angela up beside him. Then with a twist of the steering- 
 wheel he gave the Bright Angel a half -turn that sent her 
 flying along in front of the cattle, almost underneath the 
 tossing horns and plunging hoofs. Thus he shot past 
 the surging line of them, since he could not turn round 
 sharply to run before the wave without risk of upsetting. 
 As the automobile dashed past, the cattle surged on 
 irresistibly; but Nick and Angela in the car were beyond 
 the reach of hoofs and horns.
 
 348 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Three mounted cowboys saw the race won, and yelled a 
 wild yell of triumph, but their duty was to the cattle. They 
 went about their business knowing that the car was safe; 
 and Nick neither saw the men nor consciously heard their 
 shouts. 
 
 Angela was half fainting. Holding her up, he steered as 
 he could, slowing down now lest the jumping springs of the 
 car should break. He drove away from, not toward, Mrs. 
 Gaylor's house. He would not take Angela back to Carmen 
 even for a moment. Yet as she was alone and swooning 
 she could not go to his house. He caught at the idea of a 
 quick run into Bakersfield in search of a doctor. But when 
 he saw at last that Angela was slowly coming to herself, 
 drawing deep, sobbing breaths, her eyelashes trembling on 
 wet cheeks, he eased the car down on a quiet stretch of 
 road, under the shade of young walnut-trees and oaks. 
 There he stopped for a while, in the cool tree shadows. 
 
 "You're safe, precious one, safe," he whispered, as he 
 might have soothed a child. "There's nothing to be 
 afraid of now." 
 
 Angela opened her eyes and looked at him through her 
 lashes as she had never looked before. "I thought of 
 you then," she murmured. " I thought of you I wanted 
 you. Just when I expected to die." 
 
 Her eyes, her voice, her words, broke down the last 
 barrier that held him back; and he would have been more 
 or less than man if he had not poured out, in a torrent, all 
 his love and worship in a flood of words. 
 
 " Darling heart's dearest do you think I'd have let 
 you die so? I must have felt I must have heard you 
 call me. It had to be. I'd feel a thought of yours across
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 349 
 
 the world," he stammered. "If I were in my grave and 
 you wanted me, my spirit would come back into my body 
 to serve you. How I love you, love you, dear! It can't 
 be that such love can leave you cold. I'm not of your 
 world, but come down to mine, or help me to come into 
 yours. Give me a little love, just a little love, and I'll 
 give you my soul." 
 
 "Don't oh, don't!" faltered Angela. She raised her 
 head from his arm and sat up, leaning away from him. 
 
 "I know I'm a wretch!" he said. "I ought to be shot 
 for speaking of myself, when you're all broken to pieces. 
 The words came. I've been keeping them back day by 
 day, but that's no excuse. Forgive me ! " 
 
 "No you mustn't use the word forgive when you've 
 just saved my life ! It's only this I can't let you go on." 
 
 "Not now. I know. But some tune " 
 
 "No. Not ever. Don't think I couldn't care for you. 
 
 It isn't that. I could. I But I mustn't care. It's 
 
 all impossible! I ought to have told you long ago. The 
 only thing is to forget for us both. Oh, if I could have 
 kept you for my friend ! But I feel now that's impossible, 
 too. After this, we can't be friends, can we? " 
 
 "No, we can't be friends," he echoed, very pale, sud- 
 denly weary and almost broken by the strain he had 
 endured. "But are you sure " 
 
 "Sure. The more I care, the more sure. Oh, Nick, 
 my dear, my dear, I wish you had let me die!" 
 
 He looked at her strangely and very sadly, after his 
 first start and stiffening of the muscles. "Would that 
 have been better than caring for me?" he asked in a 
 voice so low that she could just catch the words.
 
 350 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "Yes, it would have been much better," she answered, 
 covering her face with her hands to hide the tears that 
 burned her eyes. She was too weak for the explanation 
 she would have given at sunset among the redwoods. 
 This was no time, and she was in no state for explanations. 
 She could only feel and hide from him what she felt, or 
 part of it; for if he but half guessed how she loved him 
 and wanted his love, she would be in his arms, his lips on 
 hers. There was no thought in her mind how terribly he 
 might be misunderstanding. 
 
 His lips were white. "Very well," he said. "It's better 
 for me that you've been frank. All the same and all the 
 more I want you to forgive me for speaking at a time like 
 this. I won't offend you again. Only I don't take back 
 anything. So now you know. Don't try to talk, and I 
 won't talk much to you. I don't think I could if I would. 
 I'm going to drive you to Bakersfield. But shall I take 
 you to a kind old doctor I know, who can give you some- 
 thing to pick you up, or would you rather I'd drop you at 
 a hotel? For I can't explain, so please don't ask but 
 I mustn't let you go to Mrs. Gaylor's again. There's a 
 good reason why. Maybe you'll know some time, but 
 I don't believe it can ever be from me. I'D fetch your 
 maid and your baggage when you're settled somewhere. 
 And if you're strong enough, the best thing wiD be to 
 start for San Francisco to-night. When you're there, see 
 Mr. Morehouse, and let him take good care of you. For 
 it's true, as you said; you and I can't go on being 
 friends." 
 
 Angela opened her lips to answer him, but could not. 
 He started the car once more, and drove on faster.
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 851 
 
 "I'll go to a hotel, thank you, not to a doctor," she 
 said when she could speak. 
 
 Soon the news of the stampede among the new bunch of 
 steers from Arizona found its way to the house, and Carmen 
 was told what had happened. The rush of the cattle had 
 been stopped by the time she heard of it, but only at the 
 brink of the big irrigation canal. Two fences had been 
 broken down and a good many animals killed. Others had 
 had to be shot. 
 
 "Anybody hurt?" Carmen asked in a queer, dry voice. 
 She seemed to take little interest hi the fate of the new 
 cattle, though they had been a costly purchase. 
 
 So far as was known, nobody had been hurt. But it was 
 too soon to be sure yet. And there was no one who could 
 tell up to that moment how the stampede had been started. 
 But some of the boys talked about a gun going off mys- 
 teriously. And a lady had been seen in the disused pasture. 
 The boys had seen her running, and afterward being 
 caught up by a man in a big yellow motor, what man they 
 weren't sure they'd been going too fast and were too 
 far off but he was like Nick Hilliard. 
 
 And it was then that Simeon Harp came on to the 
 terrace where Carmen was standing to hear the story. See- 
 ing his face she knew that things had gone utterly wrong, 
 and that all hope was lost. 
 
 "Nick will know what I did!" she told herself, as the 
 death-stab of failure struck her in the heart. "Maybe he 
 knows already. If that woman has told him how I sent 
 her out alone, and how I lied about his plans being changed, 
 and the men he had to meet, then he must guess. They're
 
 352 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 sure to compare notes, and he'll suspect about the poison- 
 oak. 
 
 The ice of despair was a frozen dagger in her breast. 
 Even before the chance came for a talk with Simeon Harp 
 she made up her mind what to do. It would be a cruel 
 wrench, but there was nothing else. She could not face 
 Nick's look of loathing, even though gratitude for the 
 past should close his lips upon his knowledge, and upon 
 his secret thoughts of her. To go away, far away, this 
 very hour, before he could come, would be a confession of 
 guilt and of utter defeat; but to Carmen, crushed and hope- 
 less and ashamed, it was the only thing to do. She would 
 go and never come back. She would live in the East, or, 
 better still, in Europe, and sell the hateful ranch. She had 
 received many tempting offers since her husband's death, 
 and through her lawyers she would accept one that was 
 still open. Life here would be too hateful with Nick for 
 a silent enemy; Nick married by and by, perhaps, to the 
 other woman. 
 
 The excitement of her decision kept Carmen from a 
 physical collapse. Quickly, if a little confusedly, she 
 thought out a plan. There would, of course, be a ques- 
 tion of insurance for the dead and injured cattle, she said 
 to the elderly foreman who had taken Nick's place on the 
 ranch. She would go to San Francisco at once. No use to 
 point out that it was unnecessary. She wished to go. 
 That was enough. And she gave directions to every one 
 what was to be done in her absence, for she might be 
 away some days. She would not take her maid. She 
 preferred to travel alone. And when some question was 
 asked later by one of the house servants about the guest,
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 353 
 
 Mrs. May, Carmen answered: "She has been suddenly 
 called away from here by telegram. I don't think she'll be 
 coming back to the house. There'll be a message for that 
 Irish girl of hers by and by, I expect. Anyhow, I can't 
 trouble about them now. Their affairs must take care 
 of themselves." 
 
 Mariette, Carmen's French maid, hurriedly and sulkily 
 packed enough things to last her mistress for a week; and 
 by the time the trunk and bag were ready the carriage was 
 waiting to take Mrs. Gaylor into Bakersfield. Everybody 
 knew that no train would leave Kern for San Francisco 
 until . night, but the imperious lady was in no mood to re- 
 ceive extraneous information. She had said something 
 about seeing a lawyer in Bakersfield. If she chose to 
 waste hours there it was her business, not that of the 
 household. 
 
 But driving to the town, Carmen decided not to go to 
 San Francisco by that night's train. She had had time to 
 reflect a little, not only upon what had happened, but 
 upon what was likely to happen. If Angela May suspected 
 the truth and Carmen's conscience told her that this 
 was more than probable she would not go back to the 
 ranch. Nick would not let her go there, even if she wished 
 it. He would send for or fetch the Irish maid and the 
 luggage, while Mrs. May already engaged to marry him, 
 perhaps waited at his place, or at a Bakersfield hotel. 
 In any case it was almost certain that "the woman" (as 
 Carmen called Angela always, in her mind) would travel 
 to San Francisco that night. And it seemed likely to 
 Mrs. Gaylor that Nick would go with her and the maid. 
 Carmen could not risk an encounter in the train.
 
 354 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Arrived at Bakersfield, fortunately without meeting 
 Nick in his motor, she hired a large automobile. And 
 at the hour when Hilliard was being informed that Mrs. 
 Gaylor had gone away for a few days, on business which 
 had come up suddenly, she was travelling swiftly by road 
 to San Francisco. 
 
 The car she had engaged was a powerful touring auto- 
 mobile, with side-curtains of canvas, and these she ordered 
 to be kept down; for she had some wild fear that Nick 
 might discover her plan, try to follow and find her during 
 her journey, necessarily much longer by motor than by 
 train. Always by daylight she was peeping out, nervously, 
 from under her thick veil, but the Bright Angel never 
 flashed into sight. She knew at last that it would not 
 come, that Nick did not mean to follow; that she would 
 not see him again this side the grave; for she did not intend 
 ever to return to the Gaylor ranch. Where she would live 
 she did not know yet, though she thought vaguely of some 
 great city in Europe Paris, perhaps, where there would 
 be plenty of excitement which might help her to forget. 
 Meanwhile, the thing was to get away away, not only 
 from California, but even from America as quickly as 
 possible, it hardly mattered how, for luckily the one 
 piece of luck she had left! there was plenty of money. 
 And the ranch could take care of itself. 
 
 The day Carmen reached San Francisco a ship happened 
 to be sailing for Japan. She was able to engage a cabin, 
 and went on board almost at the last moment. Among 
 others who arrived very late was a bent old man, with a 
 worn face which had once been handsome. Carmen did 
 not see him till the third day out. Then, from the deck
 
 THE PARTING OF THE WAYS 35i 
 
 sacred to second-class passengers, a pair of dark blue, red- 
 rimmed eyes looked up at her as she leaned listlessly 
 on the rail, gazing down. 
 
 Madame Vestris had seen in the crystal a man standing 
 beside her, a man in shadow. After all, it was not Nick 
 Billiard but Simeon Harp.
 
 XXX 
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 
 
 ONE evening, when July was beginning, Nick Hilliard 
 sat on the veranda of his plain little house, which he 
 had grown to love. Swinging back and forth in a big 
 rocking-chair, he smoked a pipe and thought very hard. 
 As he thought and smoked, he looked dreamily at a young 
 owl in a big cage; the owl he had sent home from Paso 
 Robles. 
 
 If he had been thinking about it, he could have seen, 
 dark against the pale fire of the desert sky, the source of 
 his fortune; the great gusher throwing up its black spout 
 of oil, like tons upon tons of coal. For the famous Lucky 
 Star oil supply showed no sign yet of giving out, though it 
 had been playing like a huge geyser for many months; 
 and already, since its mysterious birth, many younger 
 brothers had been born, small and insignificant compara- 
 tively, but money-makers. If Nick's thought had not 
 drawn down a curtain in front of his eyes, he must have 
 seen, across a blue lake and a black desert created by a 
 rain of oil, a forest of derricks, like a scattered group of 
 burnt fir-trees with low-hung bare branches. But instead 
 of these his mind's eye saw a new road, shaded by walnuts 
 and oaks, that marched in long straight lines between 
 rough pasture and irrigated land. He saw in the tree- 
 
 356
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 357 
 
 shadows a yellow motor-car drawn up by the side of the 
 road, and in it a beautiful, pale girl, hatless, with dis- 
 ordered golden hair and a torn white dress. He saw a man 
 with the girl, and heard her say that it would have been 
 better to die than let herself care for him. 
 
 "Yet she did care for me," Nick told himself obstinately. 
 "There's no getting over that. She said, 'You mustn't 
 think I don't care.' " And even if she hadn't said it, there 
 was that look in her eyes. Could he ever forget the look, 
 or cease to thrill at the memory? No; he knew that he 
 could not, till the hour of his death. "It was because I'm 
 not of her world, that she couldn't bear to let herself go, 
 and love me as she was beginning to love me, I know," he 
 thought, as he had thought countless tunes before, in the 
 weeks since he had quietly let her go out of his life. "I'm 
 not what she's been brought up to call a gentleman,'* his 
 mind went on drearily preaching to him. "I suppose I 
 can't realize the bigness and deepness of the gulf between 
 us, as she sees it. I've only my own standards to judge 
 by. Hers are mighty different. I knew there was a gulf, 
 but I hoped love would bridge it. She thought no bridge 
 could be strong enough for her to walk on to me. I 
 wonder if she thinks the same yet, or if the feeling I have 
 sometimes, that she's calling to me from far off, means 
 anything? I told her that day I'd feel her thinking of me 
 across the world. Well what if she's thinking of me 
 now?" 
 
 Nick had often debated this subject, and looked at it 
 from every point of view; for after the first blow over the 
 heart, a dim, scarcely perceptible light of hope had come 
 creeping back to him. Knowing from her words, and
 
 358 .THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 better still from her eyes, that Angela had cared a little, 
 at least enough to suffer, Nick had wondered whether he 
 might not make himself more acceptable to her than he 
 had been. 
 
 He did not disparage himself with undue humility in 
 asking this question. He knew that he was a man, and 
 that honour and strength and cleanness of living counted 
 for something in this world. But if he could become more 
 like the men she knew hi other words, a gentleman fit 
 to mate with a great lady what then? 
 
 For Nick was aware that his manners were not pol- 
 ished. In what Mrs. May would call "society," no doubt 
 he would be guilty of a thousand mistakes, a thousand 
 awkwardnesses. If he did anything rightly it would be 
 by instinct instinct implanted by generations of his 
 father's well-born, well-bred ancestors rather than from 
 knowledge of what was conventionally the "proper thing." 
 If Angela had let love win, perhaps she might often have 
 been humiliated by his ignorances and stupidities, Nick 
 reminded himself; and for him that would have been worse 
 than death, even as for her, according to her admission, 
 it would have been worse than death to go on caring for 
 him. Perhaps she had been wise. Maybe he was "im- 
 possible." But, if ever she suffered a moment's regret, 
 now that they were parted, and if he could yet find a way 
 of happiness for both, better than cold wisdom, was there 
 no hope? It was of a way to reach her that he was 
 thinking to-night; and abruptly the big chair ceased 
 to swing and creak. "I'll go and see that chap they call 
 the Dock!" Nick mumbled on a sudden resolution, 
 and knocked out the ashes from his pipe.
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 359 
 
 A minute later he was strolling through the hot purple 
 twilight toward Lucky Star City, one of the queerest little 
 towns on earth. It had not, however, the remotest con- 
 ception that it was queer. On the contrary, it thought it- 
 self a gay and pleasant place, singularly up-to-date, and 
 lacking nothing except water, which was now worth a good 
 deal more than the fortune-giving oil of which it had too 
 much. 
 
 The rough, mostly unpainted, wooden houses, shops, and 
 hotels composing Lucky Star City were so near the great 
 oil gusher which accounted for the town's existence that 
 the front rank of frame buildings was peppered all over 
 with a jetty spray. This disfigurement had come when 
 the gusher was at its highest, and its black, blowing spume 
 had been borne by the wind for long distances. The earth 
 seemed to have gone into mourning and to be spread with 
 a pall almost as far as the boundary of the ranch which 
 Nick had retained for himself; yet there was a strong 
 dividing-line. He had kept some pasture land, for he 
 loved cattle; but his great pleasure had been hi irrigation; 
 and literally he had made the desert "blossom as a rose." 
 Even the smell was different when he turned his back upon 
 his own fragrant alfalfa fields, and drew in breaths laden 
 with the fumes of crude petroleum. But he was used to 
 the scent of oil and hardly noticed it. 
 
 He skirted round the desert lake and steered clear of 
 another lesser lake, formed entirely of petroleum from the 
 great gusher. By day its greasy blackness glared in 
 hideous contrast to the blue though brackish water; but 
 now night lent its ugliness a strange disguise. All the 
 faint twilight that remained glimmered on the gloss of its
 
 360 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 surface like phosphorus in the palm of a negro's hand; and 
 as Nick passed on toward the town, stars shone out in its 
 dark mirror. He could hear the thick splash of the gusher 
 that rose and fell, like the beating of a giant's heart, and 
 from the brightly lighted town sounds of laughter and 
 fiddling came to him. 
 
 Lucky Star City had no suburbs. The whole place had 
 grown up in less than a year, and, in fact, such buildings as 
 had existed for six months were known as "old." There was 
 but one street, though a few ambitious landowners had run 
 up houses in "gardens" at a short but haughty distance 
 from the "business part"; and at night the town was 
 seen at its best. The three two-storeyed, verandaed 
 hotels one painted white, another green, the third and 
 noisiest not painted at all blazed with lights. The drug 
 store, the jewellery store (for there was a jewellery store, 
 and a prosperous one), the grocery store combining a 
 large trade in candy the post office, and the dry-goods 
 store where two extremes were made to meet with a 
 display of hats and shoes in the same window were every 
 one open and crowded. Men in shirt-sleeves, and men in 
 khaki, men of almost all conditions and nations, sat or 
 lounged on the hotel verandas making music or listening 
 to it, swapping stories and yelling with laughter. Away in 
 the distance at one end of the long street which had no 
 pavement but yellow sand there was a shooting gallery, 
 and every second or two was marked off with a shot, or a 
 shout of applause or derision. At the other end, equally 
 far away from the populous centre of shops, was a variety 
 theatre, a mere shanty, run up in a day; and as Nick took 
 his way toward the green-painted hotel he could hear the
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 361 
 
 shrill squalling of a woman's untrained voice, shrieking 
 out the latest comic song. 
 
 "Hello, Nick!" "How go things, High-pockets?" 
 friendly voices saluted Hilliard as he marched through the 
 cigarette-strewn sand. And he had a laughing word for 
 each one. Everybody who was anybody had a nickname 
 at Lucky Star City, and Hilliard was rather pleased with 
 "High-pockets" bestowed upon him because of his 
 height and his long straight legs. "The Dock" was the 
 sobriquet of the person he had come to see; and it was by 
 this name that Nick inquired for him, gravely, of the 
 landlord. 
 
 The man addressed chuckled. "I guess he's gone over 
 to Meek's to try and borrow some cash off his dear country- 
 man. I seen him strollin' down that way. Hope Meek'll 
 fork out. The Dock owes me two weeks' board, and I've 
 give him notice to pay up or quit. London hotels may 
 hand out free meals to the nobility and gentry for the sake 
 o' the ad. But this ain't London. Nope!" 
 
 "Is he nobility?" inquired Nick. 
 
 "Blamed if I know. Puts on airs enough. Ain't got 
 much else to put on now, I guess. No one never told me 
 you and he was chums." 
 
 "No more we are. I never had a word with him; but 
 I'm lookin' for a few," said Nick. "If he can make good> 
 we may do some business together." 
 
 "Huh!" grunted the landlord of the emerald-painted 
 hotel, which had received its colour in honour and subtle 
 advertisement of the owner's name Green. "I don't 
 see you two swappin' canteens any, Nick, but it ain't for 
 me to bust into your game; and I guess if you sling him a
 
 362 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 roll o' your good greenbacks, I'll contrive to switch some o' 
 'em off the line into my pocket. That's to say, if you give him 
 a job he can stick to his bunk and his grub in my hotel." 
 
 Mr. Green was just about to round off his ultimatum 
 with a spurt of tobacco-juice aimed at a passing cat, when 
 he checked himself hastily at sight of a woman. What 
 became of the tobacco-juice was a mystery or a conjuring 
 trick, but the cat's somewhat blunted sensibilities, and the 
 lady's not yet blunted were spared. 
 
 "Who's that?" Nick inquired in a low, respectful voice, 
 when Green had touched the place where his hat would 
 have been if he had had it on, and the young woman, 
 bowing with stiff politeness, had gone by. 
 
 "What, don't you know?" the landlord of the Eureka 
 Hotel replied with a question. "But I forgot, you ain't 
 shown up around here much since you blow'd back from 
 the East. The fellers say Noo York's kinder got your 
 goat, and you're sheddin' your feathers in these lonesome 
 wilds, pinin' after the theayters and swell doin's in the 
 Waldorf-Astoria. But I tell 'em 'nope, that ain't Nick 
 Billiard. He's true-blue to the Golden West. " 
 
 "Right you are," said Nick. "All the same, I don't 
 know who the lady is, and I'm sure I never saw her here, 
 though I have a sort of feelin' I remember her face." 
 
 "Met in another world, mebbe?" Green chuckled. 
 "She ain't no great looker, though, more's the pity for 
 our young sparks that could do with a noo beauty at Lucky 
 Star. She's no chicken, either; and her face is the kind 
 of face that to see once is to forget twice, accordin' to your 
 friend the Dook, who's great on what he calls epergrams, 
 when he's feelin' well."
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN , 363 
 
 "Oh, is he?" Nick's hopeful expression lost some of its 
 glow, for this trait of the Dock's did not strike him as 
 attractive. "He ain't my friend yet. But you haven't 
 told me who the lady is. Maybe her name will shake up 
 my recollection box, for I've seen her somewhere, sure." 
 
 "She's Miss Sara Wilkins, the new school-teacher," 
 Green replied, glad to impart information. "She was 
 imported from the fur East while you was away; called on 
 in a hurry to take the place of Mrs. Pears, who died on us, 
 right in the midst of the last term, poor critter. She had 
 no way with youngsters, Mrs. Pears hadn't, though she 
 came recommended as a treasure: so p'raps it's just as 
 well for us our treasure's laid up in heaven. We've got a 
 surprisin' lot of children in this city, for such a young one; 
 but our men are doin' that well they feel justified in sendin* 
 fur their families. We're gettin' a mighty nice society: 
 some o' our ladies from the East, as far off as Omaha; and 
 'twas the minister's wife stood out for this Miss Wilkins, 
 an old school-fellow o' hern. Pity she ain't handsome, 
 as we can't boast but two other unmarried gals in our 
 set." 
 
 Nick reflected. Where had he seen that small-featured, 
 conscientious little face? He seemed to associate it with 
 some agreeable and not very distant episode; yet its 
 intelligent insignificance was so overshadowed by the 
 pleasantness of the episode itself, that he now tried in vain 
 to identify it with a searchlight of recognition. "I give 
 up," he said to himself discontentedly. " Maybe it'll come 
 to me later." And then, suddenly, it did. 
 
 The new school-teacher at Lucky Star City was the 
 little woman who had arrived with the Native Daughters
 
 364 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 at the Santa Barbara hotel, and would have been swamped 
 by them had not Angela taken pity on her. No wonder it 
 had been an effort to label his impression, for no woman 
 had a face worth the name of face for Nick when Angela's 
 was to be seen. But perhaps Miss Wilkins had not had 
 the same difficulty in disentangling him from among her 
 impressions of the past, for she had flashed upon him a 
 glance, bright with interest, before casting down her eyes 
 decorously and passing on. 
 
 "Here comes the Dook now," remarked the landlord 
 of the Eureka. "By the look of him I guess his country- 
 man wouldn't part with anything 'cept a drink. If he 
 keeps clear of the liqour belt, as a general thing, it's only 
 because his fee-nan-shel situation don't run to it. I'll 
 introduce you." 
 
 A man approached, wearing a shambling air of dis- 
 couragement, until he saw that he was under observation; 
 whereupon his muscles tightened, and he pulled himself 
 together, straightening his narrow shoulders and throwing 
 back his small head. 
 
 "Mr. Nickson Hilliard, this is Mr. Montagu Jerrold, 
 alias the Dook, a blarsted Britisher," announced Green 
 affably. "Dook, this is Mr. Nickson Hilliard, who wants 
 to meet you, the Lord knows why; late owner of Lucky 
 Star gusher and the whitest man and the biggest man 
 we've got in this section. His other name is High-pockets, 
 as I guess you hev heard, and it might be Full-pockets too, 
 wuthout steerin' wide o' the mark." 
 
 Nick put out his hand to the newcomer who had a 
 haughty beak of a nose, little forehead, and less chin. 
 Wretched bit of flotsam and jetsam on the sands of life,
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 365 
 
 one keen look into his self-satisfied light eyes was enough 
 to learn the secret of his failure; failure which, go where 
 he would, seek as he might, could never be turned into 
 success. Nick's heart pitied the man, while it shut in- 
 voluntarily against him. 
 
 Montagu Jerrold crooked his elbow and lifted the brown 
 strong hand of High-pockets to a level with his own weak 
 chin, before he deigned to shake it. He did so then with 
 an air, and a drawled " How d 'y ' do? " which was the most 
 English thing that Nick had ever met with off the stage. 
 
 "Little brute, I'd like to kick him if he wasn't such a 
 duffer," was Nick's reluctant thought, for he had wanted 
 to be favourably impressed by the Dook. If this were 
 really anything like an English duke, give him a crossing- 
 sweeper! But he must not be too hasty in his generaliza- 
 tion. He was unhappily sure that Mrs. May's position in 
 her far-off world (world for which he was deemed un- 
 worthy) associated her with dukes, earls, barons, counts, 
 and all sorts of titled anachronisms of every nation. Re- 
 pulsive as this draggled specimen appeared, it might know 
 something worth his, Nick Hiliard's, while to learn; and 
 he was not going to give up because of first impressions. 
 He had not met Montagu Jerrold before, but had heard of 
 him often during the last three or four months since the 
 Englishman "blew into" Lucky Star City. He was a 
 boaster as well as a waster, no doubt; for according to 
 himself, he knew "everybody at home," from the King 
 down the whole gamut of the British peerage. Also he 
 "claimed" to be an Oxford man, and it was that which, 
 in this emergency, had focused Nick's attention upon 
 him.
 
 366 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 The landlord, aware that Nick had a "proposition" to 
 make, excused himself when he had brought off the intro- 
 duction; and the two men were left more or less alone at 
 their end of the hotel veranda. Nevertheless, so compli- 
 cated was the nature of Nick's business that he wished for 
 greater privacy, and he suggested a stroll in the direction 
 of the gusher. 
 
 "You're an Oxford graduate, aren't you?" he began. 
 
 "Ya-as, I went up to Oxford from Eton," drawled 
 Jerrold with an accent which Nick disliked, but was ready 
 to believe in as well-bred, because few Englishmen to the 
 "manner born" had happened to come his way. "All the 
 elder sons of my family, since the days of Charles the 
 Second, don't you know, have gone in for the Army; and 
 that's what I should have liked, but my eldest brother has 
 the money as well as the title, d'you see, and I'm only 
 third son. I 
 
 "Yes," said Nick curtly. "But you mustn't worry 
 to tell me all your private affairs unless you really 
 want to. Because what I'm most interested in is 
 the Oxford part. I never went to college, nor to any 
 school for the matter of that, except a night one, but 
 I've tried to make up a bit with reading all I could. 
 I suppose I don't know much about books, compared 
 with you " 
 
 "Oh, I was never much of a grind," the other cut in 
 hastily. "I went in for other things. I was cox " 
 
 " It's etiquette I'm thinking of," Nick confessed humbly. 
 "You'd be born knowin' a lot about that, I dare say, in 
 your family. And then, being at Oxford, too! I always 
 notice college men have a different way from those who
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 367 
 
 haven't been to any university. It's hard to explain the 
 difference, but it's there." 
 
 "Oh, rather," agreed the Englishman. "You know 
 our King himself will send all his sons to Oxford and 
 Cambridge. No thin' like it, my dear fellow, what? Our 
 family " 
 
 " Could you give lessons, sort of object-lessons, in what 
 to do and what not do in society? " inquired Nick, eager 
 yet shy, not ashamed of his motive in asking, but fearful 
 by instinct that he was not getting hold of the right 
 man. 
 
 "Nothing easier," returned Montagu Jerrold, the 
 prominent gooseberries, which were his eyes, looking some- 
 what less thoroughly boiled. " I was thinkin' of leavin' 
 this beastly hole, don't you know. Nothin' in it for a 
 gentleman, what? But if you've somethin' to offer worth 
 takin', why I might stick it out for a bit, I dessay." 
 
 Nick longed to box the creature's ears; but they were 
 well-shaped and might be the ears of a man born with 
 etiquette flowing with his blue blood, through azure veins. 
 The shape of his nose wasn't bad, but those eyes and that 
 chin ! They were, as Nick grimly expressed it to himself, 
 the limit. Nevertheless, he would persevere, and try a 
 course of lessons from the Dook. 
 
 They began to discuss terms, and Nick did not bargain. 
 Mr. Jerrold was to have an advance payment of twenty- 
 five dollars, on account of fifty, for ten "lessons"; and he 
 was to come to Nick's house every evening to "supper" at 
 half-past seven, remaining until half-past nine. Billiard 
 was to be watched through the meal and corrected if he 
 did anything wrong with his knife and fork, or his bread;
 
 368 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 and they were to have conversations and discussions cover- 
 ing various imagined emergencies. 
 
 Details were arranged, much to the satisfaction of 
 Montagu Jerrold, whose real name was Herbert Higgins, 
 and who had been a house decorator, employed and dis- 
 charged by a small London firm. Never had he been 
 inside an Oxford college: never had he seen the King 
 except on a post card. He returned joyously to his hotel, 
 where, as Mr. Green was lying in wait, he had to part with 
 most of his advance. And Nick tramped home torn in 
 mind, fearing instinctively that he was about to jump 
 from the frying-pan of ignorance into a fire of vulgarity 
 at which Angela would shudder. 
 
 Every night for a week the Dook appeared promptly in 
 time for Nick's substantial supper, which, by the way, he 
 advised his host to transform into dinner. "You simply 
 can't have 'supper' at half-past seven, my deah fellow. 
 It isn't done I Dinner should be at eight, at earliest. Our 
 royalties prefer it at nine. If you have supper it is after 
 the theatre or opera, don't you know." But when Nick 
 stolidly refused to be such an "affected donkey" as to call 
 his evening meal by another name to make it sweeter, 
 Mr. Jerrold did not scorn the meal because it lacked 
 refinement. 
 
 On the seventh night, however, Hilliard gave his noble 
 instructor notice. 
 
 "I'm real sorry," he remarked pleasantly, "but I can't 
 help it. I'd rather go on as I am, and pin myself to a 
 prickly pear, than shine in society by doing any of these 
 monkey tricks you've been tryin' to put me on to. You 
 say they're 'the thing' and the newest dope and all that,
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 369 
 
 and maybe they're real nice for your sort, but I tell you 
 they're noLfor mine! It seems to me you know a wonderful 
 lot of fool things that ain't so., arid I can't yoke up with 
 'em. What's more, I don't mean to. And now I see 
 they're the only cards you've got in your hand I don't 
 want any more dealt out to me Hook up my little finger 
 when I come to grips with a coffee-cup ! No, thank you ! I 
 see myself doin' it or any other of the pussy-cat isms you've 
 been tryin' to unload on me. And you drop your *g's' 
 just as bad as I do. No, you'll have to switch off, doc; 
 and after to-night you can go your way and I'll go mine, 
 for there's nothin' doin' here for you except this little roll 
 of bills. Good night, bud. That's all the trumps in the 
 game!" 
 
 But the bills which were the trumps for Jerrold 
 amounted to fifty dollars more than he had been promised 
 for the whole course of lessons. So he had not done badly 
 after all. And leaving Lucky Star City, which had no oil 
 nor milk of human kindness for him, he drifted on some- 
 where else, as he will continue to drift until he stumbles 
 into an ignominious grave. 
 
 But Nick was angry and thwarted angry with himself 
 because he had been a fool, and thwarted because he re- 
 mained as before, handicapped by his own ignorance. In 
 spite of Jerrold's boasts, Nick's instinct had told him after 
 the first words exchanged that the man was not only a 
 cad, but a rank pretender. Still, in his desire for social 
 knowledge, he had refused at first to listen to the voice of 
 instinct and had been punished for obtuseness. The very 
 thought of the little drawling outsider who had delighted 
 in his sobriquet of "the Dook" made Hilliard feel sick,
 
 370 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 and he opened wide all the windows and doors when the 
 contemptible creature went out of the house. " Wanted 
 to turn me into a dry-goods clerk, did he? " Nick grumbled. 
 And the episode was closed. 
 
 One afternoon, not many days after the expulsion of 
 Montagu Jerrold, Nick kept a long-made promise, by 
 going to call on the wife of the Presbyterian minister, the 
 only professional purveyor of religion who had yet settled 
 in Lucky Star City. Mrs. Kenealy was out, but was 
 coming back soon, and Nick was urged by her small daugh- 
 ter to wait. This he consented to do, and found the 
 school-teacher also waiting in the pleasant little "liv- 
 ing-room." 
 
 The young man and woman were introduced by the 
 child, who, then relieved of responsibility, left them to each 
 other's mercy, and flew to a friend with whom she had 
 been playing dolls on the back porch. 
 
 "I don't suppose you remember me," said Miss Sara 
 Wilkins rather wistfully. "But I remember you very 
 well." 
 
 "So do I you," Nick was glad to reply with truth; and 
 his heart warmed to the wisp of a woman to whom Miss 
 Dene had been catty and Mrs. May kind. "It was at 
 Santa Barbara." 
 
 "Why, you do remember!" she exclaimed delightedly. 
 "I never thought you would. I always think there's 
 nothing about me that any one could recollect. Oh, would 
 you mind telling me how that lovely lady is who was so 
 good to me? I often think about her. She was the most 
 beautiful thing I ever saw in my life." 
 
 Nick could have kissed her hands little thin hands
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 371 
 
 kissed them even in their gray lisle-thread gloves. Need- 
 less to say, however, he did nothing of the sort. He 
 answered quietly that it was now some time since he had 
 seen Mrs. May, but he supposed she was well, and still hi 
 California, probably in San Francisco. She was planning 
 to build a house near Monterey. Though his voice and 
 manner were particularly calm, his eyes were as wistful, 
 perhaps, as the school-teacher's smile had been. And just 
 because Sara Wilkins knew well what it was to be wistful 
 and try to hide it, perhaps she saw more clearly than a more 
 attractive woman would. "Something had happened," 
 she said to herself. That splendid young couple, about 
 whom she had built up such a gorgeous romance, had been 
 parted, and this handsome fellow with the kind smile and 
 heroic shoulders was unhappy, far unhappier than Sara 
 Wilkins had ever been, strange as that might seem he 
 who had looked so fortunate ! Sara wondered if the lovely 
 lady were unhappy, too, or if she had been cruel; and 
 because Miss Wilkins adored romance (having nothing 
 more personally her own to adore), not because she was 
 naturally curious, the little woman positively ached to 
 know the story. 
 
 They had nearly half an hour together she and Nick 
 before Mrs. Kenealy returned, and in that time they had 
 come close to the beginning of a friendship, each being 
 secretly in need of sympathy, and dimly detecting the 
 need in the other. Their liking for one another enchanted 
 Mrs. Kenealy, who was a born matchmaker. To be sure, 
 Miss Sara Wilkins was not pretty, and would never see 
 twenty-nine again, but she was a good girl, clever and 
 affectionate, and would make Nick Hilliard the best of
 
 372 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 wives if only he could be brought to see it. She sat be- 
 tween them, chattily telling each one nice things about the 
 other, and soon she suggested bringing Miss Wilkins to 
 visit Nick's ranch. School was off now, and the poor dear 
 had nothing to do but read and write letters home, 
 whither it cost far too much to return for only a few weeks. 
 Nick said that he would be delighted; and offered to send 
 Miss Wilkins as many books as she liked to her boarding 
 house. Books were great friends of his, he admitted 
 somewhat shyly. She was welcome to borrow any she 
 cared to have. 
 
 They saw a good deal of each other during the next 
 fortnight, too much for the school-teacher's peace of mind; 
 for the oftener they met the more was she convinced that 
 Nick was in love, perhaps hopelessly in love, with another 
 woman as different from herself as a lily from a dusty 
 sprig of lavender. Then, one day when Nick had started 
 to carry her some books and they had met on the way, the 
 two sat down and talked by the side of the blue, brackish 
 lake, sheltering from tne sun behind a bank of yellow sand 
 that was like the high back of a queerly shaped throne. 
 At a distance passed Green, the landlord of the Eureka, 
 out walking with his little daughter, and in speaking of 
 him and the odd folk who stopped at the green hotel 
 the "Dook" was mentioned. He had disappeared from 
 Lucky Star City some time before, but Miss Wilkins had 
 met and disliked him. 
 
 "Horrid little pretentious toad!" she exclaimed sharply. 
 "He was always talking to every one he could get hold of 
 about his family and his swell friends and Oxford. But I 
 don't believe any of his stories. He was just worse than
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN 373 
 
 nobody at all; and East I've met real nice Englishmen who 
 had a lovely accent, and wouldn't be found dead drawling 
 like he did." 
 
 Nick laughed. "You're jolly right," he said; and then 
 being in a humorous as well as confidential mood, he told 
 the story of himself anf Montagu Jerrold. 
 
 "Wasn't I a Johnny?" he asked at the end. "Served 
 me right for trying to make a silk purse of myself. Can't 
 be done, I guess.' 
 
 "But you are a silk purse!" Sara protested indignantly. 
 " How can you talk about yourself the way you do ?" 
 
 "I'm a little down on my luck these days," he answered. 
 "Did you ever read about the moth who loved a star? I 
 guess, when that moth got to thinking of himself and his 
 chances, he saw himself pretty well as he really was, poor 
 old chap. Fusty brown wings, too many legs, antennae 
 the wrong shape, and a clumsy way of usin' 'em. I've 
 gone and made a moth of myself, Miss Wilkins." 
 
 "Maybe the star doesn't think you a moth, or anyhow 
 not a common moth," the little school-teacher tried to 
 comfort him loyally, though her heart ached as a lonely 
 woman's heart must ache when the man she could have 
 loved, if she had dared, confides in her about the "other." 
 She had known quite well that there was another, but to 
 have the confession come out in words seemed to make her 
 feel the grayness of life rather more intensely than she had 
 felt it before. Yet she rallied her forces and longed to fight 
 Nick Hilliard's battles and wave his banner in the face of 
 the enemy if enemy there were. 
 
 "That's just what the star does think!" laughed Nick. 
 "She thinks I'm common."
 
 374 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Miss Wilkins stiffened with indignation. "I don't be- 
 lieve it if she's a real star. And you wouldn't mistake 
 an imitation one for real, would you?" 
 
 "She's the brightest star in the heavens; as good as a 
 whole constellation." 
 
 "Then she can't think you common." 
 
 "Well, put in another way. She thinks me 'impossible' 
 impossible for her, that is. She told me so. But I 
 might have known it without telling. I guess she thought 
 I would know. I had the cheek to hope, though, that I 
 might polish myself up enough to pass muster in a crowd, 
 even a crowd of her sort of people, and that she might 
 change her mind about me." 
 
 "As if that disgusting little Montagu Jerrold could 
 teach you anything!" 
 
 "I found he couldn't. Not anything she'd like me 
 better for knowing." 
 
 "If she doesn't find you good enough as you are she isn't 
 worth loving," insisted the school-teacher. "Oh, I know 
 I'm not the same kind of woman she is ! I'm only a little 
 'provincial,' as I expect she'd call me in her own mind, 
 but but I can tell a man when I see him." 
 
 "Thank you a whole lot for sticking up for me," said 
 Nick, boyishly. "But how do you know what kind of a 
 woman my star is?" 
 
 Miss Wilkins blushed and was silent. She did not look 
 pretty when she blushed, like Angela, but Nick thought 
 she had one of the nicest little faces in the world. 
 
 "I expect I've gone and given myself away," he said. 
 "Well, I don't care, for you're so good and sympathetic. 
 You've seen my star, and you can judge just what kind of
 
 THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN* 375 
 
 a blame fool I was to hope she could ever really care for a 
 rough fellow like me care enough to be yoked up with 
 me for life." 
 
 "Are you sure she didn't care?" asked the school- 
 teacher. 
 
 If he had "given himself away" he did not intend to 
 give away Angela. " I told you she said I was impossible,'' 
 he answered discreetly. "Well, thank you again for 
 listenin' to my winnings. It's done me a lot of good. Now 
 I've talked enough and too much about myself. Let's 
 talk about you." 
 
 "There's nothing interesting to say about me," Miss 
 Wilkins defended herself, with the faintest sigh that only 
 a man who loved her would have heard. " We won't talk 
 about you any more, though, if you don't want to. That 
 book of Mr. Muir's you sent me is beautiful. I've been 
 wishing to read it for years " 
 
 So they fell to discussing The National Parks of 
 America; but Sara's heart was not in the discussion, 
 much as she admired the book. She was thinking about 
 Nick and Angela. 
 
 "It doesn't seem," she told herself, "that a woman 
 who could be so kind to another woman as she was 
 to me, when she didn't even know me, could be cruel 
 to a man she did know and like, even if she didn't 
 love him. And could a woman he loved not love him 
 back again? " 
 
 Miss \Vilkins had resigned herself long ago, or thought 
 she had, to going through life without any intimate per- 
 sonal interests of her own, and when her heart ached hard- 
 est that night in her mean little boarding-house bedroom,
 
 376 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 it was going out most warmly toward Nick, and yearning 
 for the happiness of making him happy. 
 
 "If I could only do something!" she said to her mossy- 
 smelling pillow. "And I owe her a good turn too, although 
 maybe she doesn't deserve it. I wonder what I could 
 do?"
 
 XXXI 
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 
 
 THE spell was broken for Angela. She knew now, if 
 she had not known before, that it was Nick Hilliard 
 who lit the world for her with the light never seen on land 
 or sea, where love is not. Some quality was gone from 
 the sunshine, and the glory of the golden poppies had 
 withered. 
 
 Back in San Francisco, living in the rooms which he had 
 helped to make beautiful with daily gifts of flowers, she 
 realized how completely Nick had meant for her the spirit 
 of the West. It was because he had been with her that, 
 from morning till night, she had thrilled with the joy of 
 life and excited anticipation of each new day which had 
 never failed or let her tire. 
 
 Every moment she missed him and wanted him, and 
 would have given anything to call him back to her; but 
 she had no right to call, for what had she to give worth his 
 pain in coming? 
 
 Angela was an anxiety to Kate and a responsibility to 
 Mr. Morehouse. The banker would have liked to send his 
 friends to call upon Mrs. May, but she was in no mood to 
 meet people. Then he suggested that she should go to 
 Del Monte for the summer and watch the beginning of the 
 new home, but she dismissed this idea, saying that as the 
 architect had not yet even finished his plan it would be 
 
 377
 
 378 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 a long time before the house could reach an interesting 
 stage. 
 
 "We all go somewhere in summer," Mr. Morehouse 
 urged. Whereupon Angela merely shrugged her shoulders. 
 " You who live here may want a change," she said. " I've 
 had plenty of changes. I'm very happy where I am, 
 thanks." 
 
 But she did not look happy, and Kate, who loved her, 
 realized the alteration far more keenly than Mr. More- 
 house, though even he felt vaguely that something had 
 gone wrong with the Princess di Sereno. Kate, who knew 
 well what a difference happiness could make in a woman's 
 health and looks, guessed that the loss of her mistress's 
 colour and spirits was connected with the disappearance 
 of Hilliard. A paragraph she had read in that exciting 
 number of the Illustrated London News had, together 
 with some vague hints unconsciously dropped by Angela 
 and a few words of the banker's overheard, set Kate's 
 wits to working, and thus she arrived, through sympathy, 
 at something like the truth. But Mr. Morehouse's 
 diagnosis of the case had in it no such romantic ingredient 
 as hopeless love. 
 
 He alone in America (since Theo Dene was gone, and 
 Kate merely suspected) knew that Mrs. May was the 
 Princess di Sereno, who had never been a wife to Paolo 
 di Sereno except in name. He knew that the Princess 
 had grievances, and that she had left her identity in the 
 Old World in the wish to forget the past completely. 
 Knowing this, when a certain piece of news came his way 
 he felt it his disagreeable duty to pass it on to Mrs. May. 
 And it was the very piece of news which had set Theo
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 379 
 
 Dene wondering whether Angela "knew about the 
 Prince." 
 
 Most California journals are apt to give local matters of 
 interest precedence over affairs at a distance, and so it 
 was that (though Angela usually glanced through a news- 
 paper every day or two during her travels) she had never 
 come upon Paolo di Serene's name except hi that old 
 copy of the Illustrated London News. There she learned 
 how well he was amusing himself while Mrs. May saw 
 California under Nick Hilliard's guidance. But after that 
 came a blank. She knew only that he and a somewhat 
 notorious woman were making ascents together in an 
 aeroplane. But it remained for Mr. Morehouse to tell her 
 of the sensation the pair were creating in Europe. 
 
 There was a woman indeed, there was invariably a 
 woman, though not always the same whose flaunting 
 friendship with the Prince had fixed Angela's resolve to 
 turn her back on the old life. The woman had begun 
 a career on the very humblest plane, had become an artist's 
 model, then had learned to sing and dance, and at length 
 her reputation as a beauty had made her name famous. 
 A marquis had married her, and when his heart was broken 
 and his money spent, had obligingly killed himself in an 
 inconspicuous and gentlemanly manner. After that his 
 widow had achieved an even greater popular success, and 
 had attracted the attention of Paolo di Sereno. 
 
 It was about this time that Angela left Rome, and what 
 Theo Dene wondered if Mrs. May "knew about the 
 Prince," was his hope to break the record for distance in 
 a new aeroplane. Mr. Morehouse, who took one or two 
 French and English illustrated weeklies as well as New
 
 380 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 York daily papers, saw these things as soon as Theo Dene 
 saw them; and, when Angela returned to San Francisco 
 from Bakersfield, he told her of the Prince's project. 
 
 "I reasoned," he said, "that it would be better for you 
 to hear what is going on from me rather than be exposed 
 to a surprise and shock from some London or Paris paper 
 lying on a hotel table." 
 
 Angela interrupted him to reply that nothing the Prince 
 di Sereno could do had power to shock her, for they had 
 never been really in each other's lives, and had now passed 
 out of one another's orbits forever. In spite of this assur- 
 ance, however, when Mr. Morehouse saw the Princess 
 looking pale and listless taking little interest in the plans for 
 her new house, he attributed the change to humiliation, 
 or possibly even to fears for the Prince's safety, for women 
 are strange. Luckily she could not be annoyed in this 
 new country where she would make her home, for nobody 
 knew who she was or could associate her with the Prince's 
 eccentricities! Nevertheless, Mr. Morehouse thought it 
 natural that her health and spirits should suffer; and 
 because of his old and close friendship with Franklin 
 Merriam he longed to find some wholesome distraction 
 for Angela. 
 
 But after all it was Kate, not he, who succeeded in 
 supplying it. Poor Kate, so near to, yet so far from, 
 Oregon, dared in her insignificance to follow her mistress's 
 example. Though she would have had a hand cut off 
 rather than "give notice" to her beloved lady, as a matter 
 of fact, she was pining; Tim was growing impatient. His 
 affairs were marching well. Something had been saved out 
 of the disaster caused by his dishonest partner. He had
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 381 
 
 got in with a "good man," and they believed that together 
 they would some day "beat the world" with their apples. 
 Already they had obtained a London market. There 
 wasn't much ready money to spare yet; but Tim could 
 manage to pay Kate's way from San Francisco to Portland, 
 and on to his place, if she would come. Besides, there was 
 her nest egg, her dowry, from the sale of the gold bag. 
 
 Of course, Kate was dying to go, but would not even tell 
 her sad-eyed, pale-cheeked mistress that Tim was wanting 
 her. It was only when, one day, Angela noticed how 
 miserable poor Kate was looking, that little by little she 
 drew out the whole truth. Then she was roused to interest, 
 and forgetfulness of herself. 
 
 "I'll tell you what I will do, Kate," she said with more 
 animation than she had shown for weeks. " I'll take Mr. 
 Morehouse's very latest advice, and run up north to Lake 
 Tahoe, to stay till my new house is born. Then, instead of 
 your going to your Tim, he must come to you; and I'll 
 give you a wedding oh, a beautiful wedding, with a 
 white silk dress and a veil and orange blossoms, and a cake 
 big enough to last you the rest of your life. You're not 
 to make any objections, because I shouldn't be happy to 
 have you stay with me now that Tim's ready, and you 
 know the idea always was for you to go when I'd reached 
 my farthest point north and nearest to Oregon. Besides, 
 it will do me good to plan for a wedding. And I mean to 
 give you your trousseau. You shall get the things here in 
 San Francisco before we start for Tahoe." 
 
 So that was why one evening Nick read in a San Fran- 
 cisco paper that "Mrs. May, who has been staying at the 
 Fairmont Hotel for several weeks, left last night for Lake
 
 382 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Tahoe, where she has engaged rooms at the famous Tahoe 
 Tavern, and may remain for some time." 
 
 Afterward, when he sent the paper on to Sara Wilkins, 
 as he did send papers now, with parcels of books and 
 magazines, she too noticed the paragraph. 
 
 "His star's gone as far north and as far from him as she 
 can possibly go and be in California," thought the school- 
 teacher. And because Nick was right, and her good little 
 face hid a heart that was still better, she was not glad, but 
 very, very sorry. 
 
 When Kate was married to her good-looking Irishman, 
 and the little excitement of the wedding was over, Angela 
 began to feel rather desolate. 
 
 There were a great many pleasant people at the tavern 
 who would have been kind to the stranger if she had let 
 them be kind, but they were all so merry and had so many 
 intimate interests of their own that their goodness to her 
 seemed only to emphasize her loneliness. Kate had in- 
 sisted on " lending" her Timmy in fact, the bride and bride- 
 groom both insisted, for there was no doubt in their minds 
 that the black cat had brought them good fortune. Now 
 they had all the fortune they wanted, to "go on with," 
 and as poor, pretty Mrs. May seemed "a bit down on her 
 luck," they would leave her Timmy to bring it back again. 
 And really the topaz-eyed creature, in its becoming jade 
 collar a gift from Nick Hilliard was often a comfort 
 to Angela, curled up in her lap and purring cosily under her 
 book as she read. It seemed curiously fond of her, even 
 fonder than of Kate, and had "taken to" her from the 
 first. 
 
 Angela had travelled through a region of snowsheds
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 383 
 
 to reach the lake in the heart of the Sierra Nevada, and the 
 scenery was as different from any she had met in California 
 as was her mood from the mood of the south. At Tahoe 
 she was a mile above sea-level, and ringed in by higher 
 mountains which had not lost their dazzling crowns of 
 snow. 
 
 On the shore of the long blue lake that mirrored eter- 
 nally, a clear, cool sky and immense dark trees pines and 
 cedars Angela felt that a line had been drawn between 
 her and her California past, with its flame of golden 
 poppies and flowers of the forest. Here she had reached 
 a high note of beauty which rang crystalline as a silver 
 rod striking upon ice. The place gave Angela a sense of 
 purity and remoteness which she had felt by no lake-shore 
 of Europe. The charm of other lakes had been their 
 villa-sprinkled shores, their historical associations. The 
 charm of Tahoe was loneliness. She liked to row out 
 on the water alone, and rest on her oars to look down, 
 down, through miles (it seemed) of liquid sapphire and 
 emerald blending together. 
 
 Tahoe was not remote, really since luxurious trains 
 had brought it into close touch with San Francisco and with 
 the East; but Angela liked to cultivate the impression of 
 remoteness as if she were a nun in retreat, and the beauty 
 was of a kind that called to her spirit, making renunciation 
 easier than in the luscious south, scented with lilies and 
 roses. Tahoe had its roses, too; but its chief perfume was 
 of pines and the pure freshness of breezes that blow over 
 water and snow mountains. 
 
 The journey, too, had prepared her for the isolation 
 that she craved; the glimpse of tragic Donner Lake, where
 
 384 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 the pioneers starved and agonized in 1848; the wild 
 Truckee River sweeping its flood past thickets of pale 
 sagebrush and forests of black pines; the tang of cold 
 and the smell of snow in the air; the lonely farmhouses 
 folded among green hills; and the primitive look of 
 Truckee town with its little frame buildings called by 
 pretentious foreign names; Firenze Saloon; Roma Hotel. 
 
 Nobody e'se, however, seemed to have the half -sad, 
 half-delicious sense of remoteness from the world, at 
 Tahoe, which Angela had. That month was very gay, 
 and the immense verandas of the tavern were flower- 
 gardens of pretty girls those American "summer girls," 
 of whom Angela had often heard. They swam, and boated 
 and fished, and, above all, flirted, for there were always 
 plenty of men; and in the evenings they danced in the 
 ballroom of the casino, built on the edge of the water. 
 
 Angela never tired of going from end to end of the lake 
 in the steamboat that set out from the tavern jetty in the 
 morning and returned in the afternoon. The captain, a 
 great character, let her sit in a room behind the pilot- 
 box, where her luncheon was brought by an eager-eyed 
 youth working his way through college by serving as 
 steward in the holidays. He was in love with a girl at his 
 university, equally poor and equally plucky; but because 
 she was earning dollars as a waitress at the tavern, the 
 boy thought Tahoe a place "where you couldn't help 
 being happy." Angela thought it a place where, more 
 than most others, it might be possible to find peace, though 
 happiness was gone. 
 
 She no longer opened her diary. Never again, she told 
 herself, would she keep a record of her days. But, some
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 385 
 
 time years from now, maybe when she could read 
 what she had written without a heartache, she would 
 open the unfinished volume where she had broken 
 off. a sentence in the great redwood forest. She 
 might be able to think of Nick Hilliard then without 
 longing for him; but that time seemed far, very far 
 away. 
 
 One August evening Angela came back from an excur- 
 sion to the top of Mount Tallac. She was tired, and had 
 made up her mind to dine in her own sitting-room, then 
 to go immediately to bed; but asking for her key she was 
 told that "a lady was waiting to see her; had been waiting 
 nearly all day." 
 
 "A lady!" she echoed. Could it be Mrs. Gaylor? 
 Angela hoped not; for, though she had not heard from 
 Nick those things which Carmen had feared and expected 
 her to hear, she guessed something of Carmen's hate. The 
 fact that she had not been allowed to go back; that Kate 
 had arrived in Bakersfield with a story of Mrs. Gaylor's 
 being called suddenly away from home; that Carmen had 
 never answered a short letter she wrote; all these things 
 roused her suspicions. Indeed, she had even gone so far 
 as to associate the box of poison-oak leaves with Mrs. 
 Gaylor; and now the thought that the Spanish woman 
 might have followed her to Tahoe sent a shiver through 
 her veins. Who could the lady be, if not Carmen Gaylor? 
 Who but Carmen would wait patiently for her coming, 
 through a whole day? 
 
 For an instant Angela was tempted to answer: "I'm 
 too tired to see any one this evening." But that would be
 
 386 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 cowardly. Besides, she was curious to see her visitor, 
 whoever it might be. 
 
 "The lady's waiting in the veranda now," said a hotel 
 clerk. " She's been here ever since morning, but she went 
 away at lunch time and came back afterward. I don't 
 know what she means to do to-night, for the train for 
 Truckee will be leaving in a few minutes, and she hasn't 
 engaged a room." 
 
 Angela went out on the veranda, feeling a little tense 
 and excited, but when a small, blue-frocked, gray-hatted 
 figure, dejectedly lost in a big rocking-chair, was pointed 
 out to her, excitement died while bewilderment grew. 
 
 Her first thought was that she had never seen this 
 countrified-looking person before, but as her guest turned, 
 raising to hers a pair of singularly intelligent, rather 
 frightened eyes, she knew that she had met the same glance 
 from the same eyes somewhere before. 
 
 The little woman's face was so pale, so tired, her whole 
 personality so pathetic yet indomitable, that Angela's 
 heart softened. 
 
 "How do you do?" she asked kindly. "I hear you 
 have come to see me, so we must know each other, I'm 
 sure " 
 
 The visitor was on her feet, the chair, from which she 
 had sprung with a nervous jerk, rocking frantically as if a 
 nervous ghost were sitting in it. 
 
 " We don't know each other exactly," Miss Wilkins 
 hastened to explain, as though eager not to begin with 
 false pretences. "The only time you ever saw me was at 
 Santa Barbara last May, but you were very good to me 
 and and I found out your name '
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 387 
 
 " Of course. I remember quite well ! " Mrs. May smiled 
 reassuringly, for the poor little thing was certainly terrified 
 and ill at ease as well as tired. Angela sprang to the 
 conclusion that the young woman was hi money difficulties, 
 and having remembered the loan of the sitting-room at 
 Santa Barbara had somehow found her way to Tahoe 
 in the hope of getting help. Well, she should have it. 
 Angela was only too glad to be able to do something for 
 any one in trouble. " I'm glad to see you again," she said, 
 as if it were quite a commonplace thing for a stranger to 
 have dropped apparently from the clouds in search of her. 
 " But I'm so sorry you've had to wait. Perhaps you wrote 
 and I haven't got the letter yet? " 
 
 "No, I didn't write. I couldn't have explained in a 
 letter," said the weary-faced visitor; "and maybe you 
 wouldn't have wanted me to come if you'd known before- 
 hand. I thought if I'd travelled all this way though, just 
 to speak to you, you wouldn't refuse. I've been two 
 nights on the way." 
 
 "Oh, how dreadful!" exclaimed Angela. "You must 
 let me get you a room at once. Some people are leaving 
 to-night. They surely can put you up in the hotel." 
 
 "Thank you very much," returned the young woman, 
 "but I couldn't impose on you as your guest. You'll see 
 that when I've told you why I came. I can't get away to 
 Truckee, I know, for the train goes too soon, but I'll take a 
 room at some simpler place where it's cheape than this." 
 
 "We'll talk of that later," said Angela soothingly. 
 "Now I hope you'll come to my rooms and rest, and tell me 
 about yourself. When we're both washed and refreshed 
 we'll dine together in my sitting-room quietly."
 
 388 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "But it isn't about myself I want to talk," protested the 
 stranger. "I must tell you my name, Mrs. May. Of 
 course, you've forgotten it. It's Miss Wilkins Sara 
 Wilkins." 
 
 She didn't want to talk about herself! That was 
 puzzling and didn't fit in with Angela's deductions. How- 
 ever, she made no comment, and talking of her day on 
 Mount Tallac, escorted Miss Wilkins to a pretty sitting- 
 room, which in her absence had been supplied with fresh 
 flowers. 
 
 "Shall we talk first?" Angela asked. "Or would you 
 like to rest and bathe ' 
 
 "If you're not too tired yourself to listen to me, I'd 
 rather talk now," Sara answered with a kind of suppressed 
 desperation. "But you do look tired. You're thinner 
 and paler than at Santa Barbara! Yet I've been screw- 
 ing my courage up to this for so long I can hardly bear to 
 wait." 
 
 "If I was tired I've forgotten it now," said Angela. 
 "And I'm as eager to begin as you can be. But you 
 mustn't feel that it needs courage to speak out, whatever 
 you have to say. And if there's any way for me to make 
 it easier for you, I should be so glad if you could give me 
 just the slightest hint. Shall we both sit down on this 
 sofa together? " 
 
 "You sit there," replied Sara. "I don't want to be 
 comfortable. I couldn't lean back. I'm all on edge." 
 
 "Oh, but you mustn't be 'on edge'!" 
 
 "I don't tell you that to get sympathy, Mrs. May," said 
 the school-teacher, "but only because I'd like you to 
 understand before I begin that I haven't come just to be
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 389 
 
 'cheeky' and bold. I came because I felt I must on 
 somebody's account, if not yours. For myself, I didn't 
 want to force myself on you. I didn't want it one bit! 
 And now I'm here, if I could do what I feel most like 
 doing, I'd run away as fast as ever I could go, without say- 
 ing one more word." 
 
 "You almost frighten me," said Angela, her eyes dark 
 and serious. "Have I done something dreadful that 
 that I ought to be warned not to do again, and you have 
 come to tell me because you think I was once a little kind 
 to you? Not that I was really kind for it was nothing 
 at all that I did." 
 
 Miss Wilkins, sitting stiff and upright on the smallest, 
 straightest, least luxurious chair in the pretty room, was 
 silent for an instant, as if collecting all her forces. "No," 
 she answered at last. " It wouldn't be fair to say exactly 
 that. And yet you have done something dreadful. Oh, 
 my goodness, this is even harder to get out than than I 
 supposed it would be, for, of course, you'll think it's not 
 my business anyhow. And isn't or wouldn't be if 
 if " 
 
 "If what?" Angela prompted her gently. 
 
 Sara Wilkins swallowed a lump in her throat and pressed 
 her lips together. They were dry and pale. "Well," she 
 broke out, "I'll have to tell you the truth and not care 
 for my own feelings. They don't matter really. It 
 wouldn't be my business if I didn't love him myself, dearly 
 oh, but not selfishly ! And he doesn't dream of it. He 
 never will. And he never thinks about me except to pity 
 me a little and do kind things because I'm alone in 
 the world. And that's all I want of him. It is, truly,
 
 390 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 though I can't explain very well. I just want him to be 
 happy, and to have made him so. Because somebody had 
 to act if anything was to be done. And there was no- 
 body but me." 
 
 "Him!" Angela repeated in a whisper. Yet the name 
 was in her mind now, as always it was in her heart. 
 
 "Mr. Billiard, of course. You see" desperately 
 "I'm school-teacher at Lucky Star City, close to his 
 place. All the land there and the big gusher were his. 
 When he came back in[June I was at Lucky Star, and we 
 were introduced. He remembered my face dimly, more I 
 guess because he couldn't forget even the least thing 
 associated with you than for any other reason. Since 
 then we've got to be friends." 
 
 Angela did not speak, even when Sara Wilkins made a 
 slight hesitating pause. Her heart was beating too fast 
 and thickly for words to come, and, besides, there seemed 
 to be nothing to say yet, until she had heard more. 
 
 "Don't think," Sara went on, gathering courage, "that 
 he confided in me in any ordinary way. I just couldn't 
 bear you should do him that injustice. If you did I should 
 have done harm instead of good by coming all this way to 
 see you. But the very first day I met him at Lucky Star 
 I asked about you, and I saw; though he only said he 
 believed you were in San Francisco that he was heart- 
 broken about you. Even at Santa Barbara I couldn't 
 help making up a romance round you both you so 
 beautiful and somehow like a great lady, though you 
 didn't put on any airs at all; he so handsome and splendid, 
 like a hero in some book of the West. It was weeks before 
 we mentioned you again he and I though I saw a lot
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 391 
 
 of him at Lucky Star. He was kind, and it was holidays, 
 so I hadn't much to do except read books he lent me." 
 
 Still Angela said nothing, though it was evident that 
 Miss Wilkins would have been thankful at this stage for 
 some leading question which might help her over a difficult 
 place. Angela could not now give the help she had once 
 offered. Rather was she in need of it herself. She sat 
 waiting, her eyes disconcertingly fixed upon the other 
 woman's flushed face. But that was because she could not 
 bring herself to look away from it. 
 
 " Before we spoke of you again, what do you think he'd 
 been doing?" the school-teacher went on, almost fiercely. 
 
 "Oh, I can hardly tell you, it's so sad! If you're the 
 sweet woman that in spite of everything I think you are, 
 you'll be sorry all the way through to your heart. He 
 he hired a wretched humbug of a man who pretended to 
 be an English swell to teach him manners, so that he could 
 be a little worthier of you. He, Nick Billiard, the 
 noblest gentleman that ever drew breath, to stoop to 
 learning from a little thing who called itself Montagu 
 Jerrold. He did it because of what you said to him.'* 
 
 "Oh!" cried Angela, her cheeks scarlet. "I said 
 nothing nothing which could make him feel that I 
 didn't think him a gentleman. I " 
 
 "That's what I told him," Sara broke in. "I knew his 
 reason for employing Jerrold, because he made up a sort 
 of allegory about a moth loving a star and trying to fly 
 up to heaven and be near her, or something like that. I 
 said that a real star couldn't be stupid enough to think 
 him a moth, or, anyway, not a common one. And he said, 
 'That 's just what she does think me, common.' I knew he
 
 392 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 meant you, though he didn't speak your name then. And 
 I thought to myself, 'She didn't look like a silly doll 
 stuffed with sawdust,' I did you the justice to believe that 
 a great lady, experienced in the world, would know and 
 appreciate a mail. I'm just nobody at all, Mrs. May; but 
 even I'm clever enough for that. I'm sure as fate, if I were 
 acquainted with all the best kings and princes there are 
 in the world, I couldn't find a better gentleman than Nick 
 Hilliard. Yet according to him you didn't have the eyes 
 to see what he was worth. You not only turned him down, 
 but turned him down saying he was too common for you." 
 
 Angela could stand no more. It was as if the fierce little 
 woman in dusty blue serge had struck her in the face. 
 She sprang up, very white, her eyes blazing. " It is not 
 true," she said in a low voice. "He couldn't have told 
 you I said that." 
 
 "He told me you said just the same thing: that he was 
 'impossible.' That was the word a cruel, cruel word." 
 
 She was up too, the fiery little school-teacher, and they 
 faced each other the tall girl, white as lily grown in a 
 king's garden, and the little snub-nosed, freckled country 
 schoolma 'am. 
 
 "Do you mean when I used the word 'impossible,' ' 
 asked Angela, " that he thought I meant it in such a way 
 meant to tell him that he was an impossible person? " 
 
 "Yes, I do mean just that." 
 
 "You're sure of what you say?" 
 
 "Dreadfully sure. When I'd got that much out of him 
 somehow. I hardly know how I felt wounded and 
 sore, as I knew he was feeling, and, would feel all the rest 
 of his life. Oh, I'd have given mine for him! I would
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 393 
 
 then, and I would now, to make him happy. That's why 
 I came up here to find out whether, after all, there 
 could be any misunderstanding between you that could 
 be righted. He doesn't know I've come. He thinks I'm 
 staying with a friend in San Francisco. I don't want him 
 to know, ever. I should die of shame. I wish I could 
 talk in some wise, clever way to you, and get you to see 
 what a mistake you've made. He loves you so, Mrs. 
 May!" 
 
 Then a thing happened which was the last that Sara 
 Wilkins had expected. With a stifled cry Angela turned 
 away, and, covering her face with both hands, sobbed as 
 if her heart would break. 
 
 The little school-teacher trembled all over. She had 
 come here giving her time and money far more than 
 she could afford and her nerve-tissue, in Nick Hilliard's 
 cause; and all in the hope of making his "star" see the 
 error of her ways. But when the cruel star broke down 
 and cried uncontrollably, in anguish of soul, the hardness 
 and anger which Nick's champion had cherished melted 
 into pity. 
 
 "I do hope you'll forgive me," she stammered. "I 
 I didn't mean to make you suffer like this. I'm so afraid 
 I've done everything all wrong! But I let my feelings 
 carry me away. I thought if you loved him a little after 
 all, maybe " 
 
 "Loved him! I love him so much that it's killing me!" 
 Angela broke out through her tears. "I can't sleep at 
 night for thinking of him, longing for him, and telling 
 myself it's all over all the joy of waking up to a new 
 day and knowing I shall see him. Ah, night is terrible!
 
 394 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 I pray for peace, and just as I begin to hope to be a 
 little calmer, at least by day, out in the sunshine looking 
 at the white mountains, you, a stranger, come and tell me 
 that I don't love him!" 
 
 "I wouldn't have dared if I didn't love him myself," 
 Sara retorted, choking on the words. "You see I 
 know. But if you care for him like this, if you're so un- 
 happy without him, why did you send him away broken- 
 hearted?" 
 
 Angela flung her hands up, then dropped them hope- 
 lessly. With no attempt to hide her tear-blurred face she 
 answered: "I sent him away because I am married. I 
 said 'It is impossible'; not what he seems to think I 
 said." 
 
 "Oh, how sad!" The little school-teacher was con- 
 fronting real tragedy for the first time in her gray, con- 
 scientious existence. "How sorry I am. Forgive me! 
 But you know, it isn't I who matter." 
 
 "No," Angela echoed. "It isn't you." 
 
 "You didn't tell him? You gave him no idea? " 
 
 "I hadn't a chance. There'd been an evening, a little 
 while before, when I'd meant to tell if if anything hap- 
 pened. But we were interrupted." 
 
 "He thinks you're a young widow." 
 
 "Yes. It's only in the sight of the world that I have a 
 husband that I ever had one. When I came to America 
 I left the man for good, and took another name." 
 
 " 'Mrs. May' isn't your real name?" 
 
 "No. I'll tell you if you like - 
 
 "You needn't. But you ought to tell him. That, and 
 everything. I don't mean confess, or anything like that.
 
 THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL 395 
 
 Probably you thought, till you fell in love with him, that 
 there was no reason why you should give him your secrets. 
 What I mean is oh, the difference it would make to Mr. 
 Billiard, knowing that you sent him away, not because 
 you looked down on him as common and impossible, but 
 because you had no right to care!" 
 
 Angela stared at the earnest little face as if she were 
 dazed, bewildered in a dark place, and groping for light. 
 
 "I had no idea he misunderstood me so," she said slowly. 
 "If I'd guessed at the time, I couldn't have resisted 
 telling hun how much I loved him. I couldn't have 
 let him go, so wounded. But now, since no happiness 
 can ever come for us together, and perhaps by this time 
 he is getting over his first suffering, wouldn't it be better 
 just to leave the veil of silence down between us? I don't 
 want to hurt him all his life long. It must make it easier 
 for him to forget, if he believes me a 'doll stuffed with saw- 
 dust,' or a snob. He can't go on for long loving a poor thing 
 like that. And so he will be cured. Oh, though I long 
 to send him a message I mustn't. I mustn't be tempted ! 
 Let him think badly of me. It's the best and kindest 
 thing." 
 
 "No," said Sara Wilkins, "that is not the right way; 
 not for him. It might be with a vain man. But he doesn't 
 get over it. He doesn't stop loving you. Only the pain is 
 worse because he thinks you scorned him. Mrs. May, I 
 implore you to write him a letter. I can't take a message, 
 because he mustn't know I came to see you. It would 
 spoil it all for him, I think. Write as if it were of your own 
 accord. Don't explain in the letter. Letters are such 
 hard, unsatisfactory things. The best one you could write
 
 396 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 wouldn't make up to him a bit for what he's suffered and 
 what he must go on suffering, for you couldn't help study- 
 ing your words, and they'd be stiff and disappointing, no 
 matter how hard you tried to say the things just right. 
 Ask him to come here and let you explain in your own 
 words why you seemed so harsh. Only, warn him that 
 it isn't to change your mind about about saying yes. 
 It would be awful to rush up here happy and hopeful, only 
 to find out what he'll have to find out." 
 
 "You don't understand," said Angela. "I care too 
 
 much to dare see him again. I couldn't trust myself. 
 j 
 
 "Ah, but you could trust him. He's strong and high in 
 his nature like the great redwoods." 
 
 "Yes, like the great redwoods," Angela echoed, in a 
 whisper. 
 
 "He'd be a rock, too a rock to rely upon," Sara 
 went on. "Do this, Mrs. May. Do it for my sake. I 
 know it's the right thing. It will give him back his 
 self-respect. That's even more important than happiness, 
 especially to him. I've done all I could for you not 
 much, but my best. Do this for me, will you?" 
 
 "Yes, I will!" Angela answered suddenly and im- 
 pulsively. She put out her hands to the little school- 
 teacher and drew her close. They kissed each other, 
 the two women who loved Nick Hilliard.
 
 XXXII 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 
 
 "COME to me if you can. I can give you no hope of 
 happiness, but there is something I should like to explain," 
 Angela said in her letter. 
 
 She expected an answer, though she asked for none; but 
 no word came on the morning when she had thought that 
 she might hear. Other people had their letters and were 
 reading them on the veranda, but there was nothing for 
 her. She sat there for a while, cold with disappointment, 
 listening to the tearing open of envelopes and the pleasant 
 crackle of thick letter-paper. Then, when Timmy, the 
 black cat, suddenly leapt off her lap, as if in a mad rush after 
 something he fondly hoped was a mouse, Angela was glad 
 of an excuse to follow. But Timmy, who was of an inde- 
 pendent character, evidently believed that he was in for 
 a good thing. He darted across the grass, and with a 
 whisk of eager tail disappeared behind a clump of trees. 
 
 "A dragon-fly!" Angela said to herself. For Timmy 
 could not resist the fascination of dragon-flies a bright 
 and beautiful kind that spent the summer at Lake Tahoe. 
 She followed round the clump of trees, and there was Nick 
 Hilliard coming toward her with Timmy in his arms. 
 
 "Oh!" she cried, "I I thought " 
 
 "I was afraid you'd think it was too early," said Nick 
 
 397
 
 398 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 as quietly as possible, though his voice shook. "I got in 
 on the train; and after my bath I was taking a walk 
 around, till a decent time to call. Then Timmy came 
 running to welcome me " 
 
 "I believe he must really have seen you!" cried Angela, 
 grateful to Timmy, who was saving them both the first 
 awkwardness of the situation. "He is the most extra- 
 ordinary cat quite a super-cat. And you remember, he 
 used always to know what tune you were coming to call 
 when we were in San Francisco." 
 
 Owing to Timmy, they were spared a meeting on the 
 veranda, and Angela did not offer to take her visitor into 
 the house yet. 
 
 There were some quiet places in the garden in the deep 
 shadow of trees, where she could say what she had to say 
 better than between four walls. They strolled on, Nick 
 holding Timmy, who purred loudly, as if glad to welcome 
 the giver of his jade collar. 
 
 "I got your letter just in time to catch the train for San 
 Francisco, and then to get on here," Hilliard explained. 
 "Of course, you knew I'd come at once." 
 
 "No I wasn't sure. I thought I might hear from 
 you this morning a telegram or letter," Angela stam- 
 mered. "But I'm glad, very glad. It was good of 
 you to come, and so soon." 
 
 "Good!" 
 
 "I wanted so much to talk to you. I've been wanting 
 it for a long time. Ever since we parted. But it was 
 only the other night I made up my mind that I had any 
 right ,to send for you." 
 
 "What did I say to you that last day about coming
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 399 
 
 from the end of the world? It's only a step from Lucky 
 Star here." 
 
 "I know what you said. There isn't one word I've for- 
 gotten. Shall we sit under that arbour? It's my favourite 
 seat, and no one ever disturbs me." 
 
 They sat down on a rustic bench curtained with trails of 
 Virginia creeper, red as the blood of the dying summer. 
 Nick kept Timmy on his knee, stroking the glossy back. 
 His hand looked very strong and brown, and Angela 
 longed to snatch it up and lay it against her cheek. How 
 she loved him ! How much more even than she had known 
 when she couldn't see his face, his eyes and the light there 
 was in his eyes for her ! It had not changed, that wonder- 
 ful light, though his face was sadder, and, she thought, 
 thinner. 
 
 "Are you glad to see me again Nick?" she could not 
 resist asking. 
 
 He smiled at her wistfully. "Just about as glad as a 
 man would be to see God's sunlight if he'd been in prison, 
 or starving in a mine that had fallen in on him. Only per- 
 haps a little gladder than that." 
 
 She answered him with a look; and then, as involun- 
 tarily she put out her hand to stroke Timmy, their fingers 
 met. He caught hers, held them for an instant, and let 
 them go. 
 
 "Nick, that day when you saved my life and told me 
 you loved me, did I make you realize that I loved you, 
 too?" she asked. 
 
 "No. I couldn't think you meant that. I thought you 
 tried to save my feelings by saying you cared; that you 
 were sorry for me, and "
 
 400 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 "I was sorry for myself, because, you see, you'd begun 
 to be the one person in the whole world who mattered. 
 Oh, wait; don't speak yet! I had to make you understand 
 that we couldn't be anything to each other, and it was so 
 hard for me, that often I've wondered if, inadvertently, I 
 said things to hurt you more than you need have been 
 hurt. Tell me, truly and frankly, what did you believe I 
 meant by that word I used 'impossible'?" 
 
 He hesitated, then answered slowly: "I felt that I 
 ought to have known, without your telling me, I wasn't the 
 sort of man for you." 
 
 "You did think that! Oh, Nick, then I'm glad I sent 
 for you I can't help being glad. If you loved me, and 
 I were free, nothing in the world could come between us, 
 and I should be the happiest creature on earth." 
 
 " If you were free? " His hand lay heavily on Timmy's 
 back, and the cat resented it by jumping down. But both 
 had forgotten Timmy's existence and then- late gratitude 
 to him. 
 
 "If I were free. You thought I was you saw me in 
 mourning. I never meant to make you, or any one, be- 
 lieve a lie. All I thought of at first was getting away from 
 the old life. But, oh, Nick, though I'm not a widow, I was 
 never any man's wife except in name. I'm Franklin 
 Merriam's daughter you must have heard of him. And 
 when I was seventeen I married Prince Paolo di Sereno. 
 That very day I found out there was some one who had 
 more right to him that I had. She came, and threatened 
 to kill herself. You see, it was not me, it was money he 
 cared for. But he hated me for saying I would be his wife 
 only in the eyes of the world. That made him so angry,
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 401 
 
 that he has spent his life since in taking revenge. When 
 my mother died, nearly a year ago, I made up my mind to 
 leave him altogether, and I did as soon as I could. I gave 
 him more than hah* the money, so he didn't care, for he'd 
 grown quite indifferent; and I took the name of 'May.' 
 It is one of my names really. I was so glad to be some one 
 else and come to a new country to begin a new life! 
 It never entered my head that I could fall in love with 
 any one that there might be complications in my plan. 
 It seemed so simple. All I wanted was peace and a quiet 
 life, with a few kind people round me. Then you 
 came. At first I didn't realize what was happening to me 
 for it had never happened before. But soon I might have 
 seen if I hadn't closed my eyes and drifted. I was happy. 
 I didn't want you to go out of my life. Then came the 
 Yosemite, with you, and I couldn't close my eyes any 
 more. I saw my own heart. I thought I saw yours. 
 Now you understand, Nick, why I told you it was im- 
 possible for you and me to be anything more to each other 
 than friends. It was you who said we couldn't be friends. 
 And you know I want you to know that it's as hard 
 for me as it can be for you, because I love you." 
 
 She had hurried on to get it all over, not daring to look 
 at him until just at the end. When he did not speak she 
 had to look at last, and see his bowed head the dear 
 black head that she loved. 
 
 "Oh '."she murmured. "I ought never to have gone 
 with you to the Yosemite. If I hadn't, you would have 
 forgotten me by this time perhaps." 
 
 "No," said Nick. "I'd not have forgotten you. Not 
 if Fd never seen you again after that first day in New York.
 
 402 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 You see, you were my ideal. Every man has one, I guess. 
 And I just recognized you, the first minute, in the hall 
 of the hotel. I didn't expect to know you and yet, 
 somehow, it was as if I couldn't let you go even then. 
 Have I got to let you go, now, after what you've told me? 
 You're not the wife of that man that prince, except in 
 law. You don't love him, and you do love me you say 
 you do. Why, that makes you already more mine than 
 his." 
 
 "Heart and spirit, I'm all yours," Angela said. "Oh, 
 Nick, I don't love you, I worship you, you man! I 
 never thought there were men like you. I don't believe 
 there are any more. Paolo di Sereno is a mere husk." 
 
 "Divorce him," Nick implored. "You've got cause." 
 
 "He's Italian," she answered. "So am I, as his wife, 
 in the eyes of the law. He and his people don't recognize 
 divorce, even if I " 
 
 "But here " Nick began, then stopped, and shut 
 
 his lips together. No, he would not propose that. Angela 
 guessed what he had wanted to say, and loved him better 
 for not saying it. 
 
 "I used to think," she went on hastily, "that I knew 
 the worst of being married to a man without love. But 
 now I see I didn't know half. A woman can't know till 
 she loves another man. Oh, Nick, I can't get on without 
 you not quite without you. I've been trying and 
 every day it grows harder instead of easier. Nothing 
 matters but you. I'm not Paolo di Serene's real wife, 
 and he hates me. So it's not wrong to love you, Nick, or 
 for you to love me. Only, we we " 
 
 "You don't have to get on without me," said Nick.
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 405 
 
 "My angel one, you needn't be frightened. Wait till I 
 tell you. I'll go away this minute if you tell me to. 
 I'll do whatever you say, because what you say will be 
 right for you, and that's the important thing. What I 
 mean is I'm always there. My love can't change, 
 except to grow bigger and brighter and make me more 
 of a man so you won't have to worry about hurting me. 
 Once I told you we couldn't be friends, but now I know 
 you better, and what you've got in your heart for me 
 and what stands betweeen us I take that back. A 
 friend can worship his friend. I worship you. I ivill be 
 your friend, angel, in the biggest sense of the word." 
 
 "Oh, thank you, Nick," she cried. "Thank you a 
 thousand times. Now I can live again just thinking 
 as you say that you're there. The world can't be 
 blank. But you must go. I I don't think I could bear 
 this long, and keep true to myself and " 
 
 It was the same with Nick. He had felt that he could 
 not bear this long and be true either to himself or to her. 
 Yet he would have stayed if she had bidden him stay, and 
 fought for his manhood against odds. "Am I to go 
 now?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes oh, please, yes!" she begged him, holding out 
 her hands. "I am keyed up to bear it now. It might be 
 different later. But let us write to each other, Nick. 
 I'll write little things every day that I think and feel. 
 Then, if they're worthy, I'll send them to you once a 
 month or so. Will you do the same? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And you'll take care of yourself for me won't 
 you?"
 
 404 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 He could not answer in words. He crushed her hands 
 against his lips, and then, turning from her abruptly, 
 walked away, without looking back. 
 
 It grew cold at Lake Tahoe. When weeks had passed, 
 there was no excuse to stay : the plans of the architect were 
 finished, and the new house begun. Angela went to Del 
 Monte, and motored nearly every day to the forest on the 
 peninsula to see how her home grew. She had not the old 
 interest in thinking of it, but she was no longer unhappy, 
 for she had not lost Nick Hilliard out of her life. She could 
 almost feel the thrill of his thoughts. And at Del Monte 
 she was much nearer Lucky Star City than she had been 
 at Tahoe. 
 
 Sometimes she wondered if it would be very wrong and 
 unwise to have him come to look at the house when it was 
 finished. If, afterward, she could have the memory of him 
 in the rooms, walking through them with her just that, 
 no more; and then going away it would make all the 
 difference between a live home and a dead house, or a 
 house that never had really "come alive." But generally, 
 when she had dreamed this dream, she said to herself, 
 "Better not," or "It would never do." 
 
 One morning in October, just six months to the day after 
 her coming to California, she read in a San Francisco paper 
 a mere tucked-away paragraph to fill up a corner 
 that the Italian amateur aeronaut, Prince di Sereno, had 
 arranged a sensational flight from Naples to Algiers in his 
 new aeroplane, an improvement on a celebrated older 
 make. The machine had just been named the Vittoria 
 in honour of the brave and beautiful lady whom he called
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 4d5 
 
 his "mascot, "and who had made so many daring journeys 
 through the air with him. The projected dash would be 
 the most ambitious so far attempted, and it was exciting 
 considerable interest. It was said that Prince di Sereno, 
 in gratitude to his "mascot" had lately made a will in 
 her favour, leaving all his personal property to her. In 
 event of death, his great estates would go to a nephew, as 
 he was without a direct heir. 
 
 Angela wondered how much of her money was left for 
 him to bequeath to the celebrated Vittoria di Cancellini. 
 She did not grudge it either to the Prince or his mascot. 
 She took no interest in the great flight from Naples 
 to Algiers, but she felt certain that Paolo would suc- 
 ceed in accomplishing it. He had always succeeded 
 in everything he had ever wanted to do, except perhaps 
 in winning her love. But then he had not really wanted 
 that. 
 
 The day came for the flight, but she had forgotten it. 
 She went in the morning to the new house, picnicked there, 
 and returned to Del Monte only at dusk. She was think- 
 ing on the way back of several things she would put in the 
 diary she kept for Nick, sending it off to him in a fat en- 
 velope the first of each month. One bit of news she wanted 
 to tell him was that his favourite flowers pansies were 
 to be planted in a great bed under the windows of her own 
 room. "Then, whenever I look out, I shall think of you. 
 Not that I shouldn't do that anyway." She wondered if 
 she had better add that last sentence, or if it would be 
 better to leave it out. 
 
 "There's a telegram for you, Mrs. May; just this minute 
 come," said the hotel clerk.
 
 406 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 Angela took it, her heart beating fast, for whenever a 
 telegram arrived which happened seldom she always 
 wondered if it would tell her that, for some good reason or 
 other, Nick was coming. But he never had come, and had 
 never telegraphed. 
 
 She opened the envelope, and glanced first at the signa- 
 ture: "James Morehouse." Why should he have wired? 
 Then she read: 
 
 "In flight to-day aeroplane fell into Sea off Sardinia. 
 Aeronaut killed. Companion injured. Forgive abrupt- 
 ness. Wished get ahead of newspapers." 
 
 For a moment she felt absolutely unconcerned, as if 
 reading of the death of some stranger aeronaut, of Japan 
 or South America. Then: 
 
 "I hope you've not got bad news, Mrs. May?" a con- 
 cerned voice was saying. She was vaguely conscious that 
 the hotel clerk who had given her the telegram was hover- 
 ing distressfully before her. She had been standing up 
 when she began to read the message. Now she was 
 sitting down. But her voice sounded quite calm 
 and natural in her own ears as she answered, "No, 
 thank you very much. A surprise that is all. A 
 great surprise." 
 
 "You are all right?" 
 
 "Oh, quite quite!" 
 
 "Nothing I can do for you?" 
 
 "Nothing, thanks. I will go up to my room." 
 
 Her first thought, when she could think connectedly, was 
 to send her unfinished letter to Nick, with a few hastily
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 407 
 
 scribbled words at the end not about the pansies. And 
 perhaps to enclose the telegram. 
 
 But she did neither. Two days passed before she sent 
 the long diary letter, and when she did send it, nothing more 
 had been written. She waited. She did not know what 
 would happen. She did not even read the newspapers, 
 though she knew there must be paragraphs, not tucked 
 into corners, for this was, in a way, world's news. 
 There had been "considerable interest." 
 
 On the third day she was given another telegram. This 
 time the name at the bottom was the only name that could 
 make her heart beat: 
 
 " I have seen what has happened. When will you let me 
 come? " 
 
 He did not say "Will you let me come? "but "When.'* 
 She thought if she did not answer soon he would come all 
 the same. It seemed wonderful, unbelievable, that now 
 there was no wrong, no cruelty, no terrible unwisdom in 
 having him near her. But there was none. Even she could 
 see none. So she telegraphed, not the immediate summons 
 he hoped for and she was tempted to send him, but the 
 message of her second thought. "Come; not yet, but on 
 the day I have a home of my own to welcome you 
 in. Till then, let me be alone with my thoughts of 
 
 you." 
 
 The architect thought Mrs. May's impatience to get into 
 her new house, and to have even the garden finished, a 
 charming whim. As she seemed not to care how much
 
 408 THE PORT OF ADVENTURE 
 
 money was spent, relays of men, many men, were put on to 
 work night as well as day. Angela chose furniture in San 
 Francisco, all made of beautiful California woods. "We 
 shall have two homes," she thought. It was heavenly to 
 say "we" again. 
 
 "You can have Christmas dinner at your own place," 
 said the architect. 
 
 "Oh, but I want Christmas Eve there!" Angela ex- 
 claimed. "Of all things, I want Christmas Eve!" 
 
 "Very well, I promise you Christmas Eve," the architect 
 answered, almost as if she were a child. 
 
 But she was not a child. She was a woman loving and 
 longing. Always she had wanted to have a happy Christ- 
 mas Eve, and she had never had one since Franklin Mer- 
 riam died. 
 
 At last she wrote: "I am going to have a house-warming 
 at Christmas- time : only five guests, and you, Nick, are the 
 principal one. The others, are Mrs. Harland, Mr. Falconer 
 and his bride, and little Miss Wilkins, your school-teacher 
 at Lucky Star. Some day I'll tell you how we renewed our 
 acquaintance." 
 
 Nick did not care to know. He wanted to be the only 
 guest: yet somehow he felt that she did not mean to dis- 
 appoint him. She meant him to be happy that day the 
 day of Christmas Eve, when she asked him to come to her 
 at last. But how could she contrive, with other guests, 
 not to let it be a disappointment? 
 
 She contrived it by letting him arrive first at the beauti- 
 ful new house, which was as like as possible, in minia- 
 ture, to the Mission Inn where they had once "made- 
 , believe."
 
 AN END AND A BEGINNING 409 
 
 They did not speak when they met. Their hearts were 
 too full. There was no question, "Will you marry me?" 
 No answer, " Yes, I am free to love you now." But when 
 the others came, Angela said: 
 
 " Congratulate me. I am engaged to the best and dear- 
 est man on earth, and I am the happiest woman." 
 
 THE END 
 
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