"Now, just to show you," she expanded graciously for Bill's education, "I have fallen into the habit of telling the head waiter that I'd like certain flowers, or whatever it is I choose, on our table for dinner. Then I dress accordingly. Nobody knows it's planned, but I'll bet you, dear, they get the effect just the same. The stupid ones pile it all on their persons and merely look new-rich. You've never seen me look new-rich, have you, Bill?"
"Not on your life." Bill was startled into a fresh appraisal of his bride. Heretofore he had looked on, amused at her plunge into the pleasures of fashionable hotel life. Now it struck him suddenly that the slim, competent desert girl who could break a horse to the saddle or rope and brand a calf, bake pies and bread to make a chef envious, was bringing that clever brain into action in a field entirely new to her, and was demonstrating the same clever competence which had distinguished her on the ranch.
With a new respect for her intelligence he saw to the detail of having the slipper stretched. Afterward he observed that Doris had really achieved a small triumph of harmonious beauty. The table decoration did add something indefinable to her own sweet self; something which caused the eyes of others to turn their way in unconscious tribute to her beauty, as one looks and looks again at any other charming picture. As a votary of wealth and fashion Mrs. William Gordon Dale was beyond criticism, destined to become a high priestess of the art of effective extravagance.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
BAKER COLE
Baker Cole was a man who did his own thinking and was willing that the other fellow should do the same; indeed, he was tolerantly disdainful when the other fellow failed to do the same. He was so rich that he did not think much about money, or judge a man by his Bradstreet rating. Money flowed toward Baker Cole apparently of its own volition. He had started life with a fortune for his birthright, and he had gone on his way with a humorous philosophy which armored him against flattery, abuse or the deliberate attacks of other men whose fortunes equalled his but who were not content with another man's well-being.
Baker Cole's interest was first attracted to Bill's straight suppleness in the surf, and by the fact that, brown though he was to shoulders and chest, Bill was just learning to swim. Because of this incongruity, Baker Cole was given the opportunity of grabbing Bill by the hair and saving him from a vicious undertow. He wondered a bit, until he discovered that a man working in a sleeveless, low-necked undershirt under a desert sun may have the mark of a beach lounger burned into his skin.
"That accounts for your legs not being tanned." Baker Cole hauled himself out of the surf like a big, good-looking seal, and lay puffing and looking Bill over. "Wish I had muscles like yours," he remarked, crooking his finger toward a young man who immediately hurried up with cigarettes and matches. Bill accepted a smoke, and the two began to talk.