"I don't know anything about her," Nick answered with a ring of
truthfulness in his voice which Carmen's keen ears accepted. "All I can
tell you is, that she's a Mrs. May, a relation or friend of Franklin
Merriam the big California millionaire who died East about ten years
ago--about the time I was first cowpunching on your ranch."
"Oh, the Franklin Merriam who made such stacks of money irrigating desert
land he owned somewhere in the southern part of the State!" Carmen sighed
with relief. "I've heard of him of course. He must have been middle-aged
when he died, so probably this woman's old or oldish."
"I suppose so," Nick readily agreed. "Great king, isn't it mighty sweet
here to-night? It looks like heaven, I guess, and you're like--like----"
"If this is heaven, am I an angel? _Do_ I seem like that to you?"
"Well, no--not exactly my idea of an angel, somehow: though I don't know,"
he reflected aloud. "You're sure handsome enough--for anything, Mrs.
Gaylor. But I've always thought of angels lily white, with moonlight hair
and starry eyes."
"You're quite poetical!" retorted Carmen, piqued. "But other men have told
me my eyes are stars."
He looked straight into them, and at the hot pomegranate colour which
blazed up in her olive cheeks, like a reflection of the sunset.
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