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

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

The thought shot new colour into existence. "I'll pull the world up by the
roots to get her," he thought. "And she wants to live in California!
Maybe, if I try to make myself all over again, a little worthier--a little
more like what she's used to, at last she----" It seemed sacrilege to
finish the sentence.

It was for this end, to "make himself more like what she was used to,"
that he had bought the new clothes in New York. They had not been a
success. But, luckily for his happiness to-day, he did not know how
Angela had laughed when she saw the shiny shoes outside his door.

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

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

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

"But I've mapped out a programme for myself already," she went on, "which
may take a long time, for if I like a place very much I shan't want to
hurry away. For instance,