“I thought this was a battle.”
“All the more reason for having a pleasant corner to rest in,” triumphed Mrs. Hardin. “And the comfort the men take in it, the Service men especially! By the way, Innes, I met Mr. Estrada on the Delta last evening and told him you were coming. I asked him to take you over the encampment. He was perfectly willing to do it, although it’s an old story to all of them, now. You’ve no idea how many newspaper men have been down here. It’s been quite exciting.” She caught herself in time to add: “Though it has been unendurably hot! This is a model camp, as you will see. That’s why Mr. Rickard can get such work out of his men; he has made them so comfortable.”
“You need not have gone to so much trouble—” Innes told herself that she was perverse. Just peevishness to dislike plans being made for her! Gerty’s polite sentences had a way of ruffling her. She ought not to suspect deviousness.
Gerty was stealing a pleased survey in the mirror through the rough door that opened into the division called her bedroom. The sunburned, unconscious profile of Innes was close to her own. Pink and golden the head by the dark one. She looked younger even than Innes! Good humor returned to her.
“We are going to dine on the Delta to-night.” She pinned up a “scolding lock,” an ugly misnomer for her sunny clinging curls! The mirror was requisitioned again. “That’s the name of the new dredge. It was christened three weeks ago, in champagne brought from Yuma.”
“You christened it?” Innes, following a surmise, stumbled on a grievance.
“No!” sharply. Then a minute later, “They’d asked Mrs. Silent, old man Hamlin’s daughter. I suppose Mr. Rickard thought he had to. Mr. Hamlin’s the pioneer here, he’s such a dreadful old man. Besides, they’re always asking the men up to dinner. They can get a real meal there,—Mrs. Silent has a stove, and they keep chickens.” She frowned toward the chafing-dish and percolator; stern limitations theirs!
“You said dine on the Delta. Do you mean they have meals there?”
“You should see it,” cooed Gerty. “It’s simply elegant. It’s a floating hotel, has every convenience. Some of the young engineers have a sort of club there, they have brought in their own cook from Los Angeles. The camp cook, Ling, has his hands full. He does very well, but it must be very rough. The Delta has worked things up here.”
“Going to wear that?” They were standing now by the door of Gerty’s dressing tent. Over the bed a white lingerie gown was spread.