She hummed a dance-tune while Kate dressed her.  And the room was still sweet with the fragrance of that strange perfume, “Parfait d’Amour made from California flowers.”

She sat beside Nick in the yellow car, Kate (and black Timmy in a basket) behind with the sharp-nosed youth whom Hilliard called his “assistant.”  There was also luggage—­enough to last for a few days, the rest had been sent on by train to San Francisco.

Nick enjoyed hearing Angela exclaim, “This is like Algeciras!” “That’s like the Italian Riviera!” as the car ran on.  It seemed wonderful that she should have seen all the most beautiful places in Europe, that she should hold their pictures in her mind now, comparing them with these new ones, yet that her heart should be in the New World—­his world.

Near Santa Barbara the mountains came crowding down to the sea, as at Mentone; and on the horizon floated islands, mysterious as the mirage of Corsica seen from the Italian shore at sunrise.  Over there, Nick told her, was a grotto, painted in many lovely colours; and boats dived into it on the crest of a wave.  He had not heard of the Blue Grotto at Capri, but she described it; and so they went on, each with something to tell that the other did not know.

Two new battleships were trying their speed in the channel between Santa Barbara and the islands, and as the car turned into the park of the hotel the rivals raced into sight.  Angela’s eyes were dazzled with the brilliant sunshine, the blue of the sea, and the flaming colour of the geranium borders that burned like running fire the length of the mile-long drive.  The veranda was crowded with people, but thinking only of the great ships in the bay she was conscious of seeing no one until a voice exclaimed, “Why, Princess, what a surprise to meet you here!”

It was a voice she knew, and if she could have stepped back into the car, pulled her motor-veil over her eyes, and asked Nick Hilliard to drive away, she would have been glad.  But one does not do these things.  One faces emergencies, and makes the best of them.  Angela had been foolish, she told herself, not to think of running across somebody she knew.  If she wished to hide herself, she must be more prudent; but for this time it was too late.  There was Theodora Dene, of all people, waiting to meet her at the top of the steps!

“Oh, bother!” Angela had just time to whisper, before she found herself shaking hands with a tall, red-haired, hatless girl in a white dress.  Theo Dene never wore a hat unless it were absolutely necessary, for her hair was her great attraction.  It was splendid in the sun, as she came out of the shade to stand in the blaze of light, shaking Angela’s hand and sending a long-lashed glance to Nick.  She never looked at a woman if there were a man worth looking at within eye-shot.  But she had no hypocrisy about this.  She did not pretend to be a friend of women, though she was nice to them if they did