"Then you have changed all the furniture, and put up these things?" he
asked, pointing to the laurel.

"Yes, the room was really something TOO awful. It looks better now,
don't you think?"

"A hundred per cent.," said Rushbrook, promptly. "Look here, I'll tell
you what you've done. You've set the furniture TO WORK! It was simply
lying still--with no return to anybody on the investment."

The young girl opened her gray eyes at this, and then smiled. The
intruder seemed to be characteristic of California. As for Rushbrook, he
regretted that he did not know her better, he would at once have asked
her to rearrange all the rooms, and have managed in some way liberally
to reward her for it. A girl like that had no nonsense about her.

"Yes," she said, "I wonder Mr. Rushbrook don't look at it in that way.
It is a shame that all these pretty things--and you know they are really
good and valuable--shouldn't show what they are. But I suppose everybody
here accepts the fact that this man simply buys them because they are
valuable, and nobody interferes, and is content to humor him, laugh at
him, and feel superior. It don't strike me as quite fair, does it you?"

Rushbrook was pleased. Without the vanity that would be either annoyed
at this revelation of his reputation, or gratified at her defense of it,
he was simply glad to discover that she had not recognized him as her
host, and could continue the conversation unreservedly. "Have you
seen the ladies' boudoir?" he asked. "You know, the room fitted with
knick-knacks and pretty things--some of 'em bought from old collections
in Europe, by fellows who knew what they were but perhaps," he added,