She took him where seas of pink outlined peach orchards, and other seas the more delicate tint of the apricots.

She glided down avenues lined with palm and eucalyptus, pepper and olive, and through unbroken rows, extending for miles, of roses, long stretches of white, again a stretch of pink, then salmon, yellow, and red.

Nowhere in all the world are there to be found so many acres of orchard bloom and so many miles of tree-lined, rose-decorated roadway as in southern California.

She sent the little car through the evening until she felt that it was time to go home, and when at last she stopped where they had started, she realized that neither she nor Peter had spoken one word.

As he stepped from the car she leaned toward him and reached out her hand.
"Thank you for the fireplace, Peter," she said.
Peter took the hand she extended and held it one minute in both his own.
Then very gently he straightened it out in the palm of one of his hands and with the other hand turned back the fingers and laid his lips to the heart of it.
"Thank you, Linda, for the flame," he said, and turning abruptly, he went toward his workroom.
Stopping for a bite to eat in the kitchen, Linda went back to her room.
She sat down at the table and picking up her pencil, began to work, and found that she could work.