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CHAPTER II

Mr. Rushbrook glanced rapidly at his unknown guest. “Excuse me,” he said, with respectful business brevity, “but I thought every one was out,” and he stepped backward quickly.

“I’ve only just come,” she said without embarrassment, “and would you mind, as you ARE here, giving me a lift with this table?”

“Certainly,” replied Rushbrook, and under the young girl’s direction the millionaire moved the table to one side.

During the operation he was trying to determine which of his unrecognized guests the fair occupant was. Possibly one of the Leyton party, that James had spoken of as impending.

“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, looking into her eyes for the first time, “didn’t know exactly what ladies cared for.”

“I merely glanced in there when I first came, for there was such a queer lot of women–I’m told he isn’t very particular in that way–that I didn’t stay.”

“And you didn’t think THEY might be just as valuable and good as some of the furniture, if they could have been pulled around and put into shape, or set in a corner, eh?”

The young girl smiled; she thought her fellow-guest rather amusing, none the less so, perhaps, for catching up her own ideas, but nevertheless she slightly shrugged her shoulders with that hopeless skepticism which women reserve for their own sex. “Some of them looked as if they had been pulled around, as you say, and hadn’t been improved by it.”

“There’s no one there now,” said Rushbrook, with practical directness; “come and take a look at it.” She complied without hesitation, walking by his side, tall, easy, and self-possessed, apparently accepting without self-consciousness his half paternal, half comrade-like informality. The boudoir was a large room, repeating on a bigger scale the incongruousness and ill fitting splendor of the others. When she had of her own accord recognized and pointed out the more admirable articles, he said, gravely looking at his watch, “We’ve just about seven minutes yet; if you’d like to pull and haul these things around, I’ll help you.”

The young girl smiled. “I’m quite content with what I’ve done in my own room, where I have no one’s taste to consult but my own. I hardly know how Mr. Rushbrook, or his lady friends, might like my operating here.” Then recognizing with feminine tact the snub that might seem implied in her refusal, she said quickly, “Tell me something about our host–but first look! isn’t that pretty?”