“It mostly does,” Nick mumbled.  Then he said aloud, “If you used to like making believe then, wouldn’t you just try it for a little while now?  Make believe I’m going to take you round in my car, and I’ll tell you some of the things that will happen to us.”

“Well—­it couldn’t do any harm to make believe just for a few minutes, could it?” Angela wondered if she were flirting with the forest creature.  But no.  Certainly not.  She never flirted, not even with the men of her own world, as most of the young women she knew were in the habit of doing.  This was not flirting.  It was only playing—­and letting him play a little too—­at “making believe.”

“What would happen to us?” she asked.

“Well, shall we begin with to-day—­what’s left of it?—­or skip on to to-morrow?”

“I hate putting off things till to-morrow—­if they’re pleasant.”

“So do I, and this would be pleasant.  When you’d seen all you wanted of the Mission Inn, I’d drive you along Magnolia Avenue, that’s walled in with those owl-palms in gray petticoats.  As you go down it looks like a high gray wall in a fort, with bunches of green at the top, and roses trained over it.  We’d run up Mount Rubidoux, that has a grand, curlycue sort of road to the top, where there’s one of the old Mission bells, and a cross, and a plaque in memory of the best Father of ’em all, Juniperra Serra.  Rubidoux’s one of those yellow desert mountains, the biggest of the lot, with a view of Riverside, and miles of orange groves like a big garden at its foot.  We’d sit up there awhile, and I’d tell you a story of General Fremont, when he passed in the grand old days.  Then we’d spin on to Redlands, and see the park and the millionaires’ houses——­”

“I like the lovers’ bungalows best.”

“Do you?  Would you like one better for yourself?”

“A thousand times!” But she broke that silken thread quickly.  “Go on.  What would we do next?”

“Oh, next an orange-packing factory.  You’d enjoy seeing the oranges running like mad down a sloping trough, pretending they’re all equal, till the boys watching spy out the bruised ones that are sneaking along, and pitch ’em away before they can say ‘knife.’  By and by the small, no-account oranges are sent about their business, which is to play second fiddle, and the big, noble-fellows, who’re worthy to succeed, fall first into the hands of girls, who wrap them up in squares of white paper.  My faith, but those girls’ hands go fast!  It makes you feel like heat-lightning just to watch ’em fly!  Anybody who wants to can order a box of picked oranges, each wrapped in paper, with a lady’s name and a verse in her honour printed on it.  Lots of fellows do that.  When you’d seen the factory I’d drive you back to Los Angeles, and we’d get there after dark.  But there’s a searchlight on my car equal to a light on a battleship, and her name alone’s enough to illuminate the road.  I’ve christened her Bright Angel.”