Miss Dene laughed. "That doesn't sound exciting. But perhaps it is." She glanced again at Hilliard, to whom a porter had come for directions about luggage. Nick was telling him that only Mrs. May's and the maid's luggage was to go in. He intended to stop at another hotel. "Oh, _do_ ask _That_ to lunch with you, and invite me and my friends to your table," the girl suggested, in a stage whisper. "I never saw anything so beautiful. I must know him. I've been seeking a hero for my new book which I'm going to write about California, and I feel he's the one. Pity the sorrows of the poor author! If you don't," and she laughed to take away the sting, "I'll tell every one who you are. The reporters will get you--as they have me. But I liked it, and you wouldn't." Angela wondered why she had ever admired red-haired women; and as for long, narrow green eyes, she now thought them hideous. She was sure, in spite of the laugh, that Miss Dene was capable of keeping her word. "I intended to ask him to lunch with me in any case," she said calmly; and this was true. But it was to have been a repetition of yesterday; quiet and peaceful, and idyllic. "He is a Mr. Hilliard who has--been detailed by a friend of my father's to show me some places he knows. That's his car. If you and your friends would care to join us, I should be delighted of course." Then she turned away, moving back a step or two nearer the edge of the veranda, and thus closer to Nick. "I hope you mean to have lunch with me here, Mr. Hilliard?" she said. He looked up, his eyes asking if she really wanted him, or if politeness dictated the invitation. Hers gave no cue, so he did the simplest and most direct thing, which was to him the most natural thing. "I should like to, very much," he said. "But you've found friends. I could come back afterward, and take you around Santa Barbara, unless----" "One of the friends was glad when she heard you being invited," Theo Dene broke in. "And the other friends are so new, Mrs. May hasn't met them yet. You shall be introduced all together in a bunch." Of course, at that Nick came up the steps and joined Angela. He had a curious feeling as if he ought to be defending her from something; and at the same time a sensation of relief when he heard her once again called "Mrs. May." "Princess" was only a sort of pet name, no doubt. That was what he had hoped when the word caught his startled attention. He would not like to have her turn into a real princess. An angel she was for him, and might be, without seeming hopelessly remote somehow; but the pedestal of a princess was cold as a block of marble.