Theodora, in her books, made a speciality of describing the emotional
souls of women, her favourite female thermometers being usually at
freezing or boiling point--never temperate. Descriptions of scenery she
"couldn't do," and what she called "landscape gazing" bored her. She was
more interested in people, and big towns, than in wide spaces where Nature
tried to lecture her. But because Angela admired the country she admired
it, too, more audibly than Angela.

They saved the Mission for the last. Nick had set his heart on showing it
to Mrs. May at sunset. As for Theo, though she said so much, he knew by
instinct that it was not she who cared for the beauty of the magnolia
hedges, the hay-gilded meadows, and the dark oaks that blotted the gold.
He felt that he ought to admire Miss Dene, for she was handsome, and put
herself out to be kind to him; but he wished the girl away, and was glad
that to-morrow she would be travelling with her own friends. When she
looked at him with her greenish eyes, she had the air of judging his
points, as if he were a portrait she thought of adding to her collection,
and of wishing him to look at her. Nick was not to be fascinated in this
way.

Along the Cliff Drive they went to the Hope Ranch, and Angela tried to
think of the brave old days of the "Roaring Forties," of barbecues, and
wedding feasts for Spanish brides--days when the business of life was to
love, and laugh, and dance, and spend the money yielded by thousands of
rolling acres. According to the stories, all women had been beautiful, all
men brave, and ready to fight for the ladies they loved; and though the
world had changed since then, faster here than elsewhere, it seemed to her
that at heart the men of America had kept to old traditions more closely
than men in older countries. Then she smiled at herself for this
impression; for, after all, what did she know of American men?