She appeared to him radiant as a being from a higher planet.  Never could she be content with his world, he had told himself.  Dimly and wordlessly he had felt that here was a creature who had reached an orchidlike perfection through a long process of evolution, and generations of luxury.  The earth was her playground.  Men in Greenland hunted seal, and in Russia beautiful animals died, merely that she should have rich fur to fold round her shoulders.  In the South perfumes were distilled for her.  There were whole districts engaged in weaving velvets and silks that she might have dresses worthy of her loveliness, and men spent their lives toiling in mines to find jewels for her arms and fingers, or dived under deep waters to bring up pearls for her pleasure.  It was right and just that it should be so, for there was nothing under heaven fairer than she.  And since such things must always have been part of her life, because she was born for them and would take them for granted, was it reasonable to hope that she would waste two thoughts on a man like Nick Hilliard, a fellow reared on hardships, who had learned to read in night schools, and had considered it promotion to punch cattle?

All this was as true to-day in Riverside as it had been in New York and New Orleans.  Angela was prettier than ever in the simple dress she wore for motoring, and the gray silk cap that framed her face, making a halo of her pale gold hair.  Her dainty and expensive clothes were a part of her individuality, as its petals are of a rose; and she appeared to think of them no more than a nun thinks of her veil.  But Nick felt this morning that Angela had come down from her shining heights to be human with him.  She laughed like a schoolgirl, in sheer pleasure of motion which the big car gave after martyrdom with the Model.  She had travelled all over the Old World, yet she said there was nothing anywhere prettier than Riverside; no such petticoated palms as those that trailed the gray fans of other years down to their feet like the feathers of giant owls; no such pepper-trees; no such cypresses even in Italy, as these standing black as burnt-out torches against the desert sky; no such rose-covered bungalows; and, above all, no hotel so quaint as the Mission Inn.

The hour for luncheon was past, but Nick ordered flowers and a feast for a dream-bride.  Then, while it was preparing, the two walked in the garden court and under pergolas where bunches of wistaria, lit from above by the sun, hung like thousands of amethyst lanterns.

“I shall build a house like this in miniature,” said Angela, half to herself.  “I can’t have the shrines and the ‘Mission’ Arches with the bell-windows; but I can have the court and the arcades and the pergolas; and a well and lots of fountains.  Inside there shall be walls of natural wood, and great beams across the ceilings, and big brick chimneys—­’Mission’ furniture too, and Indian rugs and pottery.  I can hardly wait to begin that house!”