Just as Angela told herself that it was like Holland in the jewel-box neatness of little streets and little houses—behold the Riviera, with groups of palms among tropical flowers, and feathery pepper-trees, graceful and large as giant willows! Then, when she had decided on Italy or Southern France as a simile, far-off, sharp mountain peaks, a dark, grotesquely branching pine in filmy distance, and a doll's house with a red pointed roof, suggested a sketch on a Japanese fan.
This was a spick-and-span little world for a perpetual honeymoon, and at the entrance of the streets there should have been signs, Angela thought, saying, "No one but brides and grooms need apply." It was all distractingly pretty; and though Angela had already admired the big handsome houses of Los Angeles and Pasadena, these rose-bowered bungalows caught her fancy more. After all, there is a sameness about millionaires' mansions the whole world over; but here was something new, invented by California.
Cupid himself might have been the architect so daintily was each little dwelling planned for the happiness of two lovers; so, of course, all the women who lived in these houses must be young and beautiful. All the men must be handsome, and husbands and wives must adore each other. No creatures old or fat or inclined to be disagreeable would dare come house-hunting here; or if they did come, surely some wise suburban by-law would rule them out! Once in, as residents, the happy lovers would remain forever young.
"It's to be Riverside to-morrow, ain't it?" Sealman inquired, when, full two hours later than she had expected, he brought her back to the door of her hotel.
Angela hesitated. In California, at most times of year, it is hopeless to use the weather as a handle to hang an excuse upon. She looked at the sky. It was a vast inverted cup of turquoise.
"Are you sure the car is equal to so long a run?" she asked mildly.
The likeness between Mr. Sealman and a codfish became so marked that Angela feared he was going to be ill.
"You don't know what the car can do," he answered reproachfully.
"Perhaps not," she admitted. "Very well, we'll start at eight."
"Better make it earlier."