"I have told you why I came to California," said Angela. "I came to see it."
"And I do think you're seeing it in the _nicest_ way!" Miss Dene commented, sweetly. "I came for something quite different. I don't one bit mind confessing."
"That was what I said to reporters. And that I was going to visit Mrs. Harland. She's quite a dear, and I made her ask me, last time she was in England, because that was the first time I met her brother. I really came over with the idea of marrying him. He's splendid, and has loads of money--which I badly need, for I've spent every penny I've made from my books, and I've only eight hundred a year of my own. That won't buy my frocks! I took the greatest fancy to him. But I see now it's no use. Rather a bore! One hates to fail--and I'm not used to failure. However, there's a great romance--which is one consolation. I'm thinking whether or not I shall use it for the book. I'd like to--only Mr. Falconer's so well known. Perhaps I shall pick up another plot. Anyhow, I'm recovering from the blow, and beginning to take notice--as they say of babies and widows. That brown man of yours is a dream of beauty. Do you mind if I smoke?"
"No. And he _isn't_ mine," said Angela, taking off her motor-veil in front of the mirror.
"Well, then, dear Princess, if he isn't yours, and you don't want him to play with, do hand him over to me. I won't grab him, if you want him yourself. You were too nice to me in Rome."
"You saw in Rome that I didn't play." Angela stabbed a hatpin viciously into her hat.
"There were cats there. Here there aren't--at least not any who know the mouse."
Angela daintily ceased to be a fellow-being, in a disconcerting way she had when she chose, and became a high personage. She did this without a word, without a gesture, without even lifting her eyebrows. There was merely a change of atmosphere. Miss Dene felt it, but she did not care here as she would have cared in Rome. There, the young Princess di Sereno could have made or marred her socially. In California she was on the same ground as Mrs. May. Besides, she knew a thing about Mrs. May which, for some reason or other, Mrs. May did not want other people to know. So Theo sat on a green sofa and smoked a cigarette, hoping that she looked like a snake charmer with the sinuous, serpentine smoke-loops weaving and writhing round her head.