Spring favored them with
lilac walls at their bluest, broken here and there with the rose-
misted white mahogany. The violet nightshade was beginning to
add deeper color to the hills in the sunniest wild spots. The
panicles of mahonia bloom were showing their gold color. Wild
flowers were lifting leaves of feather and lace everywhere, and
most agreeable on the cool morning air was a faint breath of
California sage. Up one side of the valley, weaving in and out,
up and down, over the foothills they worked their way. They
stopped for dinner at one of the beautiful big hotels,
practically filled with Eastern tourists. Eileen never had known
a prouder moment than when she took her place at the head of the
table and presided over the dinner which was served to three most
attractive specimens of physical manhood, each of whom was
unusually well endowed with brain, all flattering her with the
most devoted attention. This triumph she achieved in a dining
room seating hundreds of people, its mirror-lined walls
reflecting her exquisite image from many angles, to the click of
silver, and the running accompaniment of many voices. What she
had expected to accomplish in her own dining room had come to her
before a large audience, in which, she had no doubt, there were
many envious women. Eileen rayed loveliness like a Mariposa
lily, and purred in utter contentment like a deftly stroked
kitten.
When they parted in the evening Peter Morrison had memoranda of
three locations that he wished to consider.
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