"Quite sure," returned Preston with convincing sincerity.
"Thank you," said Mr. Hepworth devoutly; he made a mental vow to the effect that Preston should never rue this day.
Thus, it happened that Alice Wilstead, on stepping from the train at the conclusion of her trip across the continent, found, instead of her old friend, a good-looking young man awaiting her, a young man after her own heart, with that gravity and stability of mien, and the dependable smile, which, being in strong contrast to her own volatile self, always impressed her pleasantly.
Hayward Preston, on his part, gazed at the most attractive woman he had ever seen, of the type he particularly admired. Tall, graceful, her vivacious irregular face lighted by the gleam of white teeth and the sparkle of dark eyes, the air of the great world clinging about her as lightly as a perfume.
To her joy, this delightful, wholesome-looking, grave man stopped before her. "Mrs. Wilstead?" he asked.
She looked at him and smiled. It was the most effective smile in her whole arsenal reserved only for very special occasions.
"Mr. Hepworth was at the last moment detained by certain business matters which are holding him a prisoner at his office and he asked me to act as his proxy. This ought to identify me, ought it not?" with a smile, and he gave her the card upon which Hepworth had written a few lines.
She barely glanced at it and then smiled again, the same smile, only a little diluted. She had seen at once that it was strong wine for Preston.
"You must meet Mr. and Mrs. Warren," she turned to the two who were fussing over their luggage. Warren was a tall, good-looking man and his wife an amiable, attractive little person.
Preston left the question open to them whether they wished to go to their hotel at once or would prefer to drive about, and see something of this new world, into which they had just stepped, and they decided in favor of the latter suggestion.
Through the town they drove, exclaiming over the roses, along the palm-lined boulevard by the shore and then in a rash moment at Alice's request, they turned toward the mountains. A rash suggestion and one that Preston had cause to rue, for presently they passed a carriage being rapidly driven in another direction and all apparently in the highest spirits. It was a party of three, two men and a girl, a slender, tanned, laughing girl, who caught Alice's eye at once. The next glance revealed the man who sat beside her, and who was leaning toward her explaining something, to be Cresswell Hepworth. As Alice bent forward, doubting the evidence of her senses, this girl lifted a bonbon from a box on her knees and held it out toward Hepworth with a pair of tiny gilt tongs. He snatched it deftly in one bite, to the accompaniment of immoderate laughter from his friends, in which he joined.