“I am hungry,” she confessed.

Over their breakfast in the little wayside restaurant, with its untidy tables and greasy lunch-counter, it was Gratton who did all of the talking.  Gloria by now realized that she was downright sorry she had come.  He seemed eager, his eyes very bright, his voice quick and vibrant with an electrical urge dominating.  She wondered vaguely what made him seem “different.”

“The waiter,” she said as they finished, “is staring his head off at our clothes.”

“We’re going to remedy that matter.  Come on; the stores are open.”

“Fancy shopping here!” The thought made her laugh.

“Just the place for what we want.  Khaki trousers and flannel shirt and boots for me; an outing-suit for you.”

He took her arm and they walked the half-dozen doors to the dry-goods store.

“I haven’t a cent with me——­”

“Let me be your banker,” he said lightly.

Gloria hesitated.  But very briefly.  Hot coffee had done much for her drooping courage; the escapade, even this going at eight o’clock in the morning into a country store with a man, and on money borrowed from the man, was an experience to put the gay note of adventure back into the affair.

Gloria made her purchases in fifteen minutes and the change from theatre gown into an olive outing-suit in another fifteen.  Her discarded garments were gathered up, put into a cardboard box by the clerk, and wrapped in heavy paper to be stowed away in the car.  She confronted Gratton smilingly in her new garb, her hands in her pockets, her face saucy, her slim body boyish in its swagger and richly feminine in its unhidden curves.  Gratton’s eyes shone, quick with admiration.  She laughed and a flush came into her cheeks as he gravely paid for her clothing and his own.  When they went to their car both were strangely silent.

“I owe you a lot of money,” she said with assumed carelessness.

“Which I hope you never repay,” he returned meaningly.

At nine o’clock they were threading the streets of Sacramento.  At a little after ten they were in Auburn.  They drove through “Old Town,” passed the courthouse and through the newer portion of the village; by the Freeman Hotel and the railroad-yards, through the “subway” under the tracks, and turned off to the right, leaving the highway for the first time and skirting the olive-orchards on the hill.  Then, sweeping around a wide curve they caught the first glimpse of the American River deep down in its historic canon.  On, over a narrow, red-dirt road, closer down to the gorge, across the long bridge, up and up the steep, writhing grade.  They came to the top of the ridge; raced through Cool, through Lotus——­

“Coloma!” gasped Gloria.  “You are going to Coloma!”

He slowed the car down that he might look at her keenly.

“Well?” he said lightly.

“It is to Coloma that you have been coming every week!”