Gault yawned, flung out his arms in a stretch, and looked at her smiling. "I told a little story in there. It was out of consideration for the feelings of your young man. I didn't come to see Mortimer. I came to see you." There was no denying the fact that Letitia looked pleased. She tried to hide her satisfaction under an air of curiosity. "What did you come to see me for?" she asked. "To take a walk. It's too fine to stay indoors talking to Tod McCormick. Go up-stairs and put on your hat, and let's take a _pasear_." Letitia needed no urging. She rarely went out alone with Gault, and the prospect of a walk in his society was very attractive. She was absent some time. When she reappeared the cause of her delay was evident. She had changed her dress, and now, in a checked silk of black and white, and trimmed with a wonderful arrangement of black gauze and ribbon, she looked her best. A large black hat with a brim shaded the upper part of her face. In the back it was trimmed with some green flowers which made a delightful harmony with her copper-colored hair. Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and as she entered the room, conscious, perhaps, of her beauty and her vanity in thus decking it, her eyes sought his, asking for admiration. Unfortunately he was not looking at her, but was turning over the pages in the magazine he had formerly discarded. "Are you ready?" he said, without looking up, but hearing from the rustle of her dress that she was beside him. "I thought you were never coming." Outside the house, they turned to the right and walked slowly up the avenue, conversing with the desultory indifference of old friends. In the bright afternoon sunlight the broad street stretched before them, almost deserted in its Sunday calm. On either side the gardens blazed with color, enameled with blooms of an astonishing richness of tint. Over the tops of fences nasturtiums poured blossoms that danced in the air like tongues of fire. Scarlet geraniums, topping long stalks, clothed with a royal robe the summit of hedges. Against sunny stretches of wall, heliotrope broke in a purple foam. Climbing roses hung in heavy clusters from vines that were drooping under the weight of such a prodigal over-production. The wide, sumptuous flowers of the purple clematis clung round the balcony posts, completely concealing the dry, thread-like vine that gave them birth. Between the houses, each one detached in its own square of ground, with that suggestion of space which is peculiar to San Francisco, glimpses of the bay came and went--bits of the gaunt hills, lengths of turquoise sea touched here and there with a patch of white sail, and sudden views of Alcatraz queening it alone on its red-brown rock.