"You're dated up with me for a little trip down Bakersfield way," he grinned. "I'll show you desert--and a game you'll like to play. It's going to be a stag party, so you'll have to get your wife's permission. We'll be gone a week, maybe. You'll have to sleep on the ground and cook over a camp fire. Bring a roll of blankets, if you like. Can you make it to-morrow?" Doris thought it was rather sudden. She had several things on for the week, however,--things which Bill-dear would not enjoy at all. Moreover, she had learned that close friendship with the Baker Coles was like being favored by royalty, and the necessity of explaining that her husband was off somewhere with Baker Cole for a week would cause the other women to twitter enviously and draw her closer within their hallowed circle. "It'll be awfully lonesome, dear man, but I do think you'll enjoy the change. Don't worry one minute about me, Bill-dear. With my maid and chauffeur, I shall be all right. And Mrs. Baker Cole has asked me to stay with her, if I feel at all strange here at the hotel. Perhaps I shall. I haven't decided, yet." Had she met the situation with a shade less equanimity, Bill would not have gone with Baker Cole. And that would have made a great difference, later on. But Destiny has a way of providing for the seemingly unimportant things of life,--which are never unimportant, whether we know it or not. He went with Baker Cole down into a region where men were pumping wealth from the ground deep under the sage-covered plains. His going was the beginning of several changes in Bill's life. CHAPTER FIFTEEN "MARY'S GOING TO HAVE A HOME!" Bill sat in a deep chair and held out his arms. Timorously, as if she were taking a great risk, a white-capped nurse stooped starchily and placed within the curve of them a soft little bundle. Bill held his breath until the precious, warm little body lay cuddled against his chest. Once each day, for a stingy ten minutes or so, Bill was permitted to hold his daughter in his arms. Sometimes, if the nurse and Doris forgot their vigilance for a space, Bill could fumble and uncover the smallest, pinkest, squirmiest feet he had ever seen in his life. On one memorable occasion, when fire engines went clanging past the silk-hung windows, he had been left unobserved long enough to brush the soft pink soles against his lips. Little Miss Mary Dale was growing at the astonishing rate of a pound a week, which Bill considered phenomenal and told of whenever he decided that it would not be a breach of etiquette to admit that he was human enough to be proud of his baby; which tells the story of Bill's servitude to conventions which he hated even while he meekly obeyed the rules.