The pink color in her face flamed for a moment, but her eyes lit with an admiration so unmistakable that Clive, too, colored and laughed nervously. He wondered if his eyes were as frank as hers. Her tall slim figure was very round; the delicate neck carried no superfluous flesh, but was apparently boneless. The small proud head was poised well back. Clive knew her features; but the rich mahogany-brown hair, crisp and electric, and curling unmanageably, the dark blue eyes, the warm whiteness of skin, the pink of cheek and lips, were the splendid finish of a hasty sketch. Her white gown was of some silken stuff embroidered with silver, and pearls were in her hair and about her throat. She looked as proud and calm and well-conducted as a young empress.
“Of course this is Mr. Clive,” she said. “You are not at all necessary, Charley. I am so sorry Miss Gordon is ill. Give me your arm; dinner is ready. I know that you have not told anyone,” she murmured, as they walked down the corridor.
“How do you know? It is a good story, and I may have told it all over the place.”
“I am sure you have not even told it to Miss Gordon.”
“Why Miss Gordon?” he asked, smiling into her frankly curious eyes.
“Are you engaged to her?”
He laughed but made no reply.
“I don’t believe you are,” she said abruptly, after they were seated. “You don’t look the least bit as if anyone owned you.”
“Why did you make an English room of this? It might have been taken bodily out of some old manor house. These Chinamen in it are an anomaly. I should have thought you would rather preserve the character of the country.”
“The old Californians had no taste whatever about interiors—whitewashed walls and hair cloth furniture. Besides, we have just about as much of California out here as we can stand, and like to import something else into it occasionally.”