she be content with his world, he had told himself. Dimly and wordlessly
he had felt that here was a creature who had reached an orchidlike
perfection through a long process of evolution, and generations of luxury.
The earth was her playground. Men in Greenland hunted seal, and in Russia
beautiful animals died, merely that she should have rich fur to fold round
her shoulders. In the South perfumes were distilled for her. There were
whole districts engaged in weaving velvets and silks that she might have
dresses worthy of her loveliness, and men spent their lives toiling in
mines to find jewels for her arms and fingers, or dived under deep waters
to bring up pearls for her pleasure. It was right and just that it should
be so, for there was nothing under heaven fairer than she. And since such
things must always have been part of her life, because she was born for
them and would take them for granted, was it reasonable to hope that she
would waste two thoughts on a man like Nick Hilliard, a fellow reared on
hardships, who had learned to read in night schools, and had considered it
promotion to punch cattle?

All this was as true to-day in Riverside as it had been in New York and
New Orleans. Angela was prettier than ever in the simple dress she wore
for motoring, and the gray silk cap that framed her face, making a halo of
her pale gold hair. Her dainty and expensive clothes were a part of her
individuality, as its petals are of a rose; and she appeared to think of
them no more than a nun thinks of her veil. But Nick felt this morning
that Angela had come down from her shining heights to be human with him.
She laughed like a schoolgirl, in sheer pleasure of motion which the big
car gave after martyrdom with the Model. She had travelled all over the
Old World, yet she said there was nothing anywhere prettier than
Riverside; no such petticoated palms as those that trailed the gray fans
of other years down to their feet like the feathers of giant owls; no such
pepper-trees; no such cypresses even in Italy, as these standing black as