It was one of her pleasures to dress beautifully, in a style that might have seemed exaggerated on a different type of woman, and would have been extravagant for any except the mistress of a fortune.  But never had Carmen taken more pains than to-night, when she expected only one guest.  Her white chiffon and silver tissue might have been a wedding gown.  She adored jewellery, and had been almost a slave to her love for it, until she began to value something else more—­something which, unfortunately, her money could not buy, though she hoped and prayed her face might win it.  She had quantities of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies—­her favourite stones—­but instinct had told her that even one would spoil the effect she wished to make to-night.  She wore only a long rope of pearls, which would have suited a bride; and as she stood in the shadow of her bamboo temple, the pearls drank iridescent lights:  green from the jade-coloured trees, pink from roses trailing over arbours, and gold from the California poppies thick among the grass.

Of course, any one of many reasonable things might have happened to delay Nick.  He was busy, busier even than when he had been foreman of the Gaylor ranch a year ago, but Carmen could not bear to think that he would let mere reasonable things keep him away from her, just this night of all others.  For exactly a year—­a year to-day, a year this morning, so it was already more than a year—­she had ceased to be a slave, and she had had everything she wanted, except one thing.  Perhaps she had that too, yet she was not sure:  and she could hardly wait to be sure.  Nobody but Nick could make her so, and he ought to be in joyful haste to do it.  He was not cold blooded.  One could not look at Nick and think him that, yet to her he sometimes seemed indifferent.  Carmen made herself believe that it was his respect which held him back.  How desperately she wanted to know!  Yet there was a strange pleasure in not knowing, such as she might never feel again, when she was sure.

Suddenly, far off, there was a rustling in the bamboo forest.  A figure like a shadow, but darker than other shadows, moved in the distance.  Carmen’s heart jumped.  She took a step forward, then stopped.  It was not Nick Hilliard after all, but old Simeon Harp, the squirrel poisoner, coming from the direction of Nick’s ranch, bringing her a message, maybe.  She felt she could not possibly bear it if Nick were not coming, and she hated him at the bare thought that he might send an excuse at the last moment.

“What is it, Sim?” she called out sharply, as the queer, gnarled figure of the old man hobbled nearer.

“Nothing, my lady,” Simeon Harp answered in the husky voice of one who is or has been a drunkard.  “Nothing, only I was over at Nick’s finishin’ up a bit of my work, and he said, would I tell you he was sorry to be late.  He’s had somebody with him all afternoon, and no time to pack till just now.  But he’ll be along presently.”