a pavilion.

"In a country where it never rains," said the host, "where it is eternal
spring, walls to a house are conventions on which to stack books and hang
pictures. Mary has chosen nature for her decorative effect--cheaper,
even, than mine. In the distance is Galeria; in the foreground, what was
desert six years ago."

The overhead lamp deepened to purple the magenta of the bougainvillea
vines running up the pillars of the pavilion; made the adjacent rows of
peony blossoms a pure, radiant white; while beyond, in the shadows, was a
broad path between rows of young palms.

Mary appeared around a hedge which hid the open-air kitchen. The girl of
the gray riding-habit was transformed into a girl in white. Jack saw her
as a domestic being. He guessed that she had seen that the table was set
right; that she had had a look-in at the cooking; that the hands whose
boast it was that they could shoot, had picked the jonquils in the
slender bronze vase on the table.

"Father, there you are again, bringing a book to the dining-room against
the rules," she warned him; "against all your preachments about reading
at meals!"

"That's so, Mary," said Jasper Ewold, absently, regarding the book as if
some wicked genius had placed it in his hand quite unbeknown to him.
"But, Mary, it is Professor Giuccamini at last! Giuccamini that I have
waited for so long! I beg your pardon, Sir Chaps! When I have somebody to
talk to I stand doubly accused. Books at dinner! I descend into dotage!"