A. M. Williamson

“ Within, free to every hand, were the embroideries, the great treasures of the church.
"Isn't it mysterious?" she asked, in a half-whisper, for loud tones would make jarring notes in this haunt of silence. "Can anything have happened to the Padre?"
"Things don't happen these days," Nick reassured her.
But he was not quite easy in his mind. "It's too dark for you to see the vestments well. Shall I carry them downstairs?"
"No," said Angela. "I'd rather look at them here. It's like staring at flowers in the night. The colours come up to your eyes in the most wonderful way." ”

“ Could it be that Theo Dene was right? Was Nick's interest in her—Angela—less than, and different from, his interest in Mrs. Gaylor? She had no right to know, no right to want to know, still less to try to find out. Yet she felt that not to know very soon would make her lose sleep, and appetite, and interest in daily life.
Silence fell between them for a moment. The rose of sunset burned to ashes-of-rose. A small clock on the mantelpiece mentioned in a discreet voice that it was a quarter to eight. Nick got up, rather heavily for a man so lithe as he. ”

“ His was a wild, uncivilized kind of handsomeness, she thought, like that of a noble, untamed creature of the forest, changed by enchantment into a man and thrust into modern clothes. Yet the look he gave her was not uncivilized, only surprised, rather boyish, and as if the brilliant eyes had suddenly lit upon something good which they had been seeking. Very odd, and a little exciting, Angela found the look.
If the young man's clothes were modern, they were far from being fashionable; not at all the sort of clothes to suit the background of a marble hall in a New York hotel. ”

“ Angela came and stood close to Nick. She had never been a timid girl; but since the night when she had lain watching a thief who slowly, slowly raised her window, twelve storeys above the ground, foolish and hitherto unknown terrors crept through her veins if she happened to wake in the dark. And now there certainly was a rustling which stirred the silence, then died, as if it had never been.
"Don't go away from me," she said. "It's so dark that if we're separated we may be ages finding each other." ”

“ One evening, when July was beginning, Nick Hilliard sat on the veranda of his plain little house, which he had grown to love. Swinging back and forth in a big rocking-chair, he smoked a pipe and thought very hard. As he thought and smoked, he looked dreamily at a young owl in a big cage; the owl he had sent home from Paso Robles.
If he had been thinking about it, he could have seen, dark against the pale fire of the desert sky, the source of his fortune; the great gusher throwing up its black spout of oil, like tons upon tons of coal. ”

“ The earth was like a bride, displaying her trousseau of lace, fall after fall of it, on green velvet cushions, and the gold of her dowry, the splendour of her wedding gifts, in a riot of flowers. No money coined in mints could buy diamonds such as this bride had been given by her mother—Nature; diamonds flashing in river and cascade upon cascade. But Carmen Gaylor had no eyes for them. She had merely a pleasant impression that Shasta Springs seemed to be a pretty place, and no wonder it was popular with millionaires, who built themselves houses up there on the height, in the forest! ”

“ Gee! there's as much romance about irrigation in this country, I guess, as there is about angels which you can see only in dreams; for you see every day, when you're wide awake, the miracle of your ditches. You just watch your desert stretches or your meanest grazin' meadows turn into fairyland. I say, Mrs. Gaylor, have you ever read a mighty fine book—old but good and fresh as to-morrow's bread—called The Arabian Nights?"
"I don't know. I dare say I read some of it when I was a little girl," replied Carmen, wondering what Nick was leading up to. "It's for children, isn't it?" ”

“ The name might be laughable, but the fragrance was exquisite as the sweet air among the orange groves.
Angela sighed, without knowing that she sighed, as she put the bottle down and pushed it away.
She did not even look at it again until she was ready to switch off the electric light, and try to sleep, after Kate had finished her ministrations. Then, once more, Mrs. May sniffed daintily at the "Parfait d'Amour," as a bird hovers near a tempting crumb thrown by a hand it fears. She wondered what flowers made up this sweetness, so different from any perfume she had known. ”

“ She wore only a long rope of pearls, which would have suited a bride; and as she stood in the shadow of her bamboo temple, the pearls drank iridescent lights: green from the jade-coloured trees, pink from roses trailing over arbours, and gold from the California poppies thick among the grass.
Of course, any one of many reasonable things might have happened to delay Nick. He was busy, busier even than when he had been foreman of the Gaylor ranch a year ago, but Carmen could not bear to think that he would let mere reasonable things keep him away from her, just this night of all others. ”

“ The moonshine, that turned mountains to marble and sky to pearl, was cold as it was pure; and in its bleaching radiance Angela seemed less woman than spirit. He dared not let that angel know how hot was his heart.
"I'll wait till we're among the Big Trees," he said to himself. "They're great, as great as the mountains in their way, but they're friendly and kind, as if they might help. That's where I'll risk it all: in the Mariposa Forest, the place I like better than any other in the world. ”

“ Nick was not sure whether to take this as an excuse or a stab. He was sure of but one thing. Something hideous had come between him and his angel, while he slept and dreamed of her; and nothing would ever be the same again. Of course it must be his fault; and if he were used to women he would perhaps see what he had done that a woman would disapprove. Or perhaps, even so, he would be in the dark, for there were all the other women in the world, and there was Angela May. She was a law unto herself. ”

“ Nick thought for a moment, not looking at Carmen. He gazed out through the torn curtain of roses into the silver of the moonlight, over the wide lawn with its fountains, toward the walls of trees which screened from sight the rolling billows of the ranch-meadows with their cattle, their shining, canal-like irrigation-ditches, their golden grain, their alfalfa, their fruit and flowers. All this wealth and much more old Grizzly Gaylor had given the pretty young singer in exchange for her beauty and the pleasure of snatching her away from other men. ”

“ The sun poured gold; oranges blazed in golden splendour; and California poppies, golden with orange hearts, swept in a yellow flame over the landscape.
"Gold under the earth, and gold over the earth," thought Nick. "That's California!" And he thought, too, of the gold of Angela's hair. "She'd look mighty well in this yellow car, floating along among the white and gold of oranges and orange-blossoms, all white and gold herself," he said. "And she's going to look well in it. That's what I got it for. That's what I've been working for till this auto's fit to eat out of my hand. ”

“ Kate was sure that after what had happened she would have no appetite for dinner; but, like a true Irish girl, she was romantic to the core of her heart; and because she was deeply in love with her Tim, she had the "seeing eye" which showed her clearly what was in Nick Hilliard's heart for Angela.
Of course, he was not good enough for her lady; no man could be. But Kate had a sneaking kindness for Nick, the splendid giver of the golden bag, and would not, by offering her services as cutter-up-of-food for the queen, rob him of the privilege. ”

“ You hear the forest talking, and think it is the river. You hear the river, and think it is the wind giving a signal to the trees, that they may begin speaking; for trees and river and wind have lived so long together—like people married happily since early youth—that thoughts and words and tones have come to be the same. But among the redwoods is the noblest music of all, different from that of any other trees. ”

“ It would be a pity to shut out so much loveliness by switching on the electricity, so when Nick came he found Angela, a tall, slim black figure, with a faint gold nimbus round its head, silhouetted against a background of flaming sky. Standing as she did with her back to the window, he could hardly see her face, but the sunset streamed full into his as he crossed the room, holding out his hand.
His dark face and deep-lighted eyes looked almost unearthly to Angela seen in this wonderful light. No man could really be as handsome as he seemed! ”

“ But Kate was near; and besides, a snub from Angela might stop the "journeyings" then and there. So he answered with a mere compliment, as any man may, meaning nothing at all or a great deal. To save her from danger, it was worth while to have been born, he said. And he remembered, as he had remembered many times, how clear had been the call he had heard to go East; a call like a voice in his ears, crying, "Nick, I want you. Come." He was tempted to be superstitious, and to believe that unconsciously, in some mysterious way, Angela had summoned him to be her knight. ”

“ In thinking of the Yosemite, Angela had, half-unconsciously, pictured herself and Nick Hilliard alone in the valley together, separated from "mere tourists" by a kind of magic wall. But down it tumbled with her first moment at El Portal; and behold, on the other side of the wall were hundreds of eager young men and women who no doubt resented her existence as much as she resented theirs.
The huge veranda of the log-built hotel, on the hill above the railway, swarmed with brides and bridegrooms. ”

“ Close to Nevada, they reached a famous viewpoint, and Nick took Angela off her pony that she might stand near the edge and see the white torrent plunge over an unthinkable abyss. Always she had hated to look down from heights, because they made her long to jump and end everything. But to-day she was in love with life, and the leap of the waters quickened her heart with a sense of power. ”

“ But Nick felt this morning that Angela had come down from her shining heights to be human with him. She laughed like a schoolgirl, in sheer pleasure of motion which the big car gave after martyrdom with the Model. She had travelled all over the Old World, yet she said there was nothing anywhere prettier than Riverside; no such petticoated palms as those that trailed the gray fans of other years down to their feet like the feathers of giant owls; no such pepper-trees; no such cypresses even in Italy, as these standing black as burnt-out torches against the desert sky ”

“ Therefore she was just superstitious enough to feel that "May" might bring happiness, since her father's memory was the single unshadowed spot in her life of twenty-three years. A brilliant life it would have seemed to most women, one to be envied; but Angela could not see why.
The lashes which shaded her slate-gray eyes had that upward curl which shows an undying sense of humour, and she had been a merry little girl, with flashes of wit which had enchanted Franklin Merriam before she was snatched away to Europe at eleven, never to see him again. ”