She knew how Nick, as a little boy, had swept shops and found all sorts of odd jobs; how he had been errand boy, 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 eventually 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 Gaylor 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 unarmed 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.