She lay back, her skirts sweeping his feet. A pink ribbon was twisted in her hair. The colour in her cheeks was pink. The pose of her head, as she absently regarded the stupid frescoes on the ceiling, strained her beautiful throat, making it look as hard as ivory, accentuating the softer loveliness of the neck. Thorpe looked at her steadily. He rarely touched her hand. "I have something else in store for you," she said, after a moment. "Just beyond the army posts are great beds of wild strawberries. It was a custom in the Spanish days to get up large parties every spring and camp there, gather strawberries, wander on the beach and over the hills, and picnic generally. We have kept it up; and if this weather lasts, if spring is really here, a crowd of us are going in a couple of weeks--you included. You have no idea what fun it is!" "I shall not try to imagine it." He spoke absently. He was staring at a curling lock that had strayed over her temple. He wanted to blow it. "I am tired," she said. "Talk to me. I have been gabbling for an hour." "I'm not in the mood for talking," he said, shortly. "But keep quiet, if you want to. I suppose we know each other well enough for that." The other people left the room. Nina arranged herself more comfortably, and closed her eyes. Her mouth relaxed slightly, and Thorpe saw the lines about it. She looked older when the animation was out of her face, but none the less attractive. His eyes fell on her neck. He moved closer. She opened her eyes, and he raised his. The colour left her face, and she rose. "Take me to papa," she said; "I am going home." V The party for the elk-hunt assembled at Mr. Randolph's door at four o'clock on Monday morning. Miss Hathaway's large Spanish eyes were heavy with the languor of her race. Miss Shropshire looked cross. Even the men were not wholly animate. Nina alone was as widely awake as the retreating stars. She rode ahead with Thorpe. They made for the open country beyond the city. What is now a large and populous suburb, was then a succession of sand dunes, in whose valleys were thickets of scrub oak, chaparral, and willows. A large flat lying between Rincon Hill and Mission Bay was the favourite resort of elk, deer, antelope, and the less aristocratic coyote and wild cat. It was to this flat that Mr. Randolph's party took their way, accompanied by vaqueros leading horses upon which to bring back the spoils of the morning. The hour was grey and cold. The landscape looked inexpressibly bleak. A blustering wind travelled between the sea and the bay. From the crests of the hills they had an occasional glimpse of water and of the delapidated Mission, solitary on its cheerless plain. In the little valleys, the thickets were so dense they were obliged to bend their heads. The morning was intensely still, but for the soft pounding of the horses' hoofs on the yielding earth, the long despairing cry of the coyote, the sudden flight of a startled wild cat.