through in a hurry, because the social event of the
trip came that afternoon--Lillian Arnold's reception at her home on
Figuerroa Street.

At Hacienda Arnold there is running water along the garden copings, and
the grounds are large. It was bud-time, and the heavy fragrance of the
orange blossoms mingled with the bitter-almond smell of oleanders. Miss
Arnold served her refreshments on the lawn, and the girls looked peachy
in plume-laden hats and filmy organdies. The day was rather warm for
December. To this out-door reception came the prettiest girl in Los
Angeles, Dolores Payson; her full name, she confided to Cecil Van Dyke
that evening with a slight but captivating roll of her Andalusian eyes
and r's, was Dolores Ynez Teresa Payson. Van Dyke was the only man on
the trip who had thought to bring his summer togs, and he looked very
swell. Van played first mandolin and was notoriously susceptible. It is
down in the Club annals that she caught his game at first sight.

Had she been given to genealogical investigation, the name Van Dyke
might have recalled to this descendant of many hidalgos that foggy
battle-field in the Netherlands on which her ancestor and his took
pot-shots at each other with the primitive cross-bow. Motley records
that on that day far-gone Holland laid low the Spaniard. The present
historian is forced to chronicle the final triumph of Spain. The only
bow used in this last encounter was in the hands of a mythological
person whose existence is doubted only by scoffers.

They tried a dance or two in the crowded rooms, they strolled out into
the gardens, they ate ices under the roses in a secluded arbor. The
place, the time, the air had their influence on Van Dyke. He was from
Montana, where the magnolias do not shed their waxen petals at
Christmas, and the gold-of-Ophir roses sternly refuse to leaf until the
Fourth of July.

Perhaps he might have withstood all the seductive charms of the hour if
he had not escorted Dolores home and essayed to bid her good-bye. There
was a great clump of flaming poinsettia at the Payson gate. Dolores was
dark, with a rich southern complexion; her dress was white. So she stood
against the poinsettia. That is why there is more to this story.

Van Dyke meditated as he went into town. She was the finest girl he had
ever met. It was a hard graft, this playing one day in a live town where
one could meet charming people, and being forced to take the train next
morning for