"No," said her hostess. "I knew I couldn't go to sleep. I'm glad if you rested. You look very fresh."
Angela could not conscientiously return the compliment. Mrs. Gaylor might have been travelling for a week instead of one night.
Luncheon was in the pergola, where Carmen and Nick had dined together the night he went away; the night—as she expressed it to herself of late—when she had lost him. Angela had never seen a more beautiful place, and said so, trying to make conversation; for now that Nick was not with them she felt ill at ease with Mrs. Gaylor. "What a garden!" she exclaimed. "The other night in the Yosemite I dreamed of just such a garden—and I think, at the end of the dream there was a woman in it—rather like you. You must be very happy here."
"Yes, I'm happy enough," said Carmen. "Oh! I mustn't forget to tell you—Nick came back. Did you hear his automobile?"
"No. I must have been asleep."
"I thought you were. Besides, your room's on the other side of the house."
"It's beautifully quiet and cool. Did Mr. Hilliard come to change the plan for this afternoon?"
"Yes. He turned round before getting home, because he'd remembered something he had to do at six, something important, business with the men who've bought his gusher. They're to look at another one—smaller, but pretty good—and see if they want to buy it too; a new gusher that's burst out on the land Nick kept for his own. So he thought perhaps we wouldn't mind going over to look at the place a good deal earlier, after all, in spite of the heat. He won't let you be exposed to the sun more than he can help."
"I don't mind the heat, if you don't," said Angela.
"Oh, as for me, I'm half Spanish, you know. I'm like a salamander. Nick'll come back between half-past two and three—soon after his lunch. He might almost as well have stayed with us. But, of course, as he's been away from home so long, he wants to have a look around and be sure that everything's all right for a stranger to see. I don't wonder! I told him we'd meet him at the east gate. It's a short cut, and though it isn't much of a walk for us, and is in shade over half the way, it cuts off more than two miles of bad road for him—road that's just being made. I thought you'd rather like a stroll through the bamboo grove, which everybody admires so much. The only part of the walk that will be hot is going across a bit of disused pasture land. But we'll take green-lined parasols. I have a lot of them about the house, for visitors. We ought to start by two-thirty; and by three-fifteen, with the motor, we can be coming in sight of the Lucky Star Gusher, like a huge black geyser. You know Nick's land was once part of mine, so his place is no distance, really. I hope you don't dislike walking?"