"Oh, he is," said Honor, warmly, "but I'm afraid we ought to hurry back to his father!"
"I'll have Richard telegraph. Of course, if he's really bad, you'll have to go, but we do want you to stay on!" She was moving about the big room, giving a brisk touch here and there. "Have your cold dip and rest an hour, my dear. Dinner's at eight. Josita will come to help you." She opened the door and stood an instant on the threshold. Then she came back and took Honor's face between her hands and looked long at her. "You'll do," she said. "You'll do, my girl! There's no—no royal road with these Kings of ours—but they're worth it!" She dropped a brisk kiss on the smooth young brow and went swiftly out of the room.
To the keen delight of the hosts there was a fourth guest at dinner, a man who was stopping at another hacienda and had come in to tea and been cajoled into staying for dinner and the night. He was a personage from Los Angeles, an Easterner who had brought an invalid wife there fifteen years earlier, had watched her miraculous return to pink plump health and become the typical California-convert. He had established a branch of his gigantic business there and himself rolled semiannually from coast to coast in his private car. Honor and Jimsy were a little awed by touching elbows with greatness but he didn't really bother them very much, for they were too entirely absorbed in each other. He seemed, however, considerably interested in them and looked at them and listened to them genially. The Kings were thirstily eager for news of the northern world; books, plays, games, people—they drank up names and dates and details.
"We must take a run up to the States this year," said Richard King.
"It would be jolly, old dear," said his wife, levelly, her wise eyes on his steady hands. "If the coffee crop runs to it!"
"There you have it," he growled. "If the coffee crop is bad we can't afford to go,—and if it's good we can't afford to leave it!"
"But we needn't mind when we've house parties like this! My word, Rich'—fancy having four house guests at one and the same blessed time!" She led the way into the long sala for coffee.
"Yes,—isn't it great? Drink?" Richard King held up a half filled decanter toward his guest.
The personage shook his head. "Not this weather, thanks. That enchanted well of yours does me better. Wonderful water, isn't it?"