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 fortunately 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 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 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 buttons 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!