"Are you, honey?" Bill bit his lips and hid something away where even his own heart must never find it. She had elaborated on his broken speech there at Parowan Number One, but Bill set that down to a more versatile vocabulary. He too had been so happy his heart had ached; but he had not been able to find those words to say.
Desert tan and mail-order trousseau hurt her pride terribly. She insisted upon a quiet hotel until the defects could be remedied but Bill only laughed at her vanity. He could call it that now, though he loved the trait,—since he could gratify it.
"When you've got a million dollars in your fist nobody's going to mind if you walk into the Palace in a gingham dish apron," he told her shrewdly. "And besides, if you had everything you think you need, you'd lose the fun of buying." He paused, glancing from the window of the taxi,—there were not so many, in those days. "What do you like best, little lady, diamonds, pearls or rubies?"
"All of them," Doris stated solemnly.
They laughed together, and Doris squeezed Bill's arm and said she was happy.
Mrs. William Gordon Dale proved herself a capable young woman who could adapt herself quickly to changed circumstances and surroundings. Once she discovered that desert tan can scarcely be distinguished from the carefully cultivated tan of ocean beaches, her self-consciousness melted into calm assurance. Likewise merged the mail-order trousseau into the almost-latest fashion of gowns, hats, cloaks, of a restrained elegance and a clever adaptation to that indefinable thing she called her "style" and clung to with firmness in the face of gorgeous temptations.
Wherefore, she arrived in Santa Barbara (Bill accompanying her, of course) with only five trunks and the sophisticated air of a girl who was born to luxury.
"You sure don't look as if you've ever had your hands in dough," was Bill's way of putting it. "I never noticed your hands so much before. I always loved them, but now I keep looking at them for their beauty."
"There are arts and wiles, Bill-dear, that make a heap of difference. It just takes time and money—and I have loads of both. Weren't those people lovely, that we met on the beach?"
"Baker Cole and his wife? Yes, he struck me just about right. Human cuss, that you can slip an improper remark to without wishing you had kept your darn mouth shut and concealed your ignorance. I'm sick of being made to think that desert words put me in the natural-curiosity class. Darn 'em, I've had more education than half the Johnnies that give me the tolerant look. There are men in this hotel with more money than I've got, that say, 'They told he and I——' and never turn a hair. But if I forget to stand up when a woman comes within rifle shot, they look as if I had insulted their wives. Lord, little lady, I've lived too long where there weren't any women! A fellow gets out of practice."