CHAPTER XX

GOOD-BY TO MEXICO CITY

"Oh, yesterday was a grand day!" Nan stretched her arms wide and high as she sat up in her bed the next morning.

"Yes, wasn't it?" Bess rolled over in her bed and looked at Nan. "It was just full of surprises. I don't know what I liked the best."

"I do," Nan said promptly.

"What?"

"Oh, Cousin Adair. I think he's a darling."

"He'd probably roar a mighty roar if he heard you say that," Bess laughed at the prospect, "but you know, I quite agree with you, even if it isn't my friend that he has invited to stop at the hacienda."

"But Walter's a friend to all of us," Nan protested.

"Yes, yes, of course," Bess agreed. "He's a friend to all of us and a particular friend to you."

"Bessie, if this big pillow wasn't so soft," Nan looked at the pillow she was holding in her hand speculatively, "I'd heave it over at you so fast that you wouldn't know what had struck you."

"That's all right, Nancy," Bess laughed. "I understand. You don't like to be teased."

"Wasn't it fun last night?" Nan changed the subject completely.

"What was fun?" Bess could remember so many nice things that she really didn't know which one Nan was talking about.

"Dinner on the bank of the canal at Xochimilco," Nan answered promptly. "I'll never forget it. The lights. The flowers. The music. Who would ever think to look at him and hear him talk that Cousin Adair would be romantic enough to think up anything like that?"

"I know it." Bess idly watched an insect that was buzzing around the room. "I was much surprised. Then I began to wonder if it wasn't Walker Jamieson's idea after all. You know he has a clever way of suggesting things to your cousin, so that when your cousin decides what to do it appears as though he thought up the idea originally."

"Why, Bess." Nan appeared to be horrified at the thought.

"Oh, you know it's so." Bess looked over at Nan. "It's lots of fun to watch him do it. Do you know, sometimes I think that he's almost clever enough to make Mr. MacKenzie think that the idea of his marrying Alice was his, Mr. MacKenzie's I mean, originally. Do you suppose?"

"Bess, if you don't stop speculating about that, I don't know what I'm going to do to you." Nan laughed. "You know you might spoil everything by talking about it," she ended seriously. "For all you know the idea has never once entered Walker Jamieson's head."

Bess hooted at this. "Don't you ever think that," she said finally, "because it isn't true and you know it isn't."

"Say, what are you two people doing in bed at this hour?" Laura stuck her head in the doorway and inquired. "Don't you know that it's long past time to get up."

"Oh, bed's so nice," Nan answered, "I just hate to get up."

"Well, all I can say is," Laura finished before she closed the door, "the temperature downstairs is slightly chilly, and if you know what's good for you, you'll be out of there in a jiffy."

"Right-o." Nan jumped up at this bit of information. "Hi! Laura," she called after her friend, "come back here a minute. Was there any mail this morning," she asked as Laura's red head reappeared.

"Nothing for us," Laura answered, "but your cousin got something that made him blow up. That's why I'm telling you to hurry. I gather from certain orders I overheard him giving the chauffeur that he wants to start immediately, if not sooner, for the hacienda."

"Really?" Bess asked, as she too jumped out of bed. "You mean we are going to leave Mexico City today."

"That's the impression I'm trying hard to convey," Laura responded. "And I think that if you two lugs want any breakfast at all, you better get a hustle on." With this she closed the door definitely and disappeared.

Needless to say, Nan and Bess hurried as they had not hurried for a long time. "Getting ready for an early morning class in the winter has nothing on this," Bess laughed as she tied a bright three-cornered scarf around her neck and pulled it in place.

"I'll say it hasn't," Nan agreed, quickly tying the laces in her white oxfords. "A lick and a promise and we're ready to go." With this she bounded across the room and opened the door wide for her friend.

"Such energy!" Bess exclaimed as though horrified. She was never one to be as exuberant as Nan. She was always more dignified and more correct. Nan was more natural and more full of fun. She did what she liked to do, for the most part, simply because it was fun. Bess was more apt to do things because other people did them. Nan was a leader, and Bess, the follower. That was, perhaps, the reason they had been friends for so long. They were alike in some respects, but totally different in others.

Now, as they came down the broad stairway of the big hotel lobby together, this difference was most plain. Adair MacKenzie, pacing up and down the lobby even as he did in his office when he was at work, stopped to look at them.

"She'll get by," he thought with satisfaction as he noted Nan's bright face and free, graceful walk. "'bout time you two made your appearance," he said aloud and assumed a grim appearance. "Finished a day's work myself already. Guess it's another to get you people started."

"Started?" Nan questioned.

"Can't stay here all the time." Adair answered her question. "Anyway, I just got word that the housekeeper is arriving tomorrow and I've got to get down there and have things straightened around before she puts in an appearance. These ornery housekeepers, you know, have to be babied. If you don't, they leave every time you turn around. Someday, someone will invent a robot that will do the work, and then--"

"You won't have a housekeeper to scold anymore, daddy," Alice interrupted and finished for him.

"Serve her right," Adair answered as though the housekeeper would be the loser. "Can't see that she's any good anyway."

"So we're leaving." Walker Jamieson joined the rest in the lobby. He had been out for an early morning walk and looked fresh and full of life as he came in. "Got your camera, Nan?" he turned to her when he spoke.

"Upstairs," Nan answered.

"Let's take a few pictures," Walker suggested. In the face of Adair's morning state, this seemed a daring thing to suggest, and Nan looked at Adair to see his reaction. He seemed not to be listening.

"Run along," Alice gave Nan a little shove. "Dad's going to be busy for the next half hour or so, finishing up some business here, so if we hurry, we can take all the pictures we want to."

At this Nan did go upstairs for her camera. She was anxious enough to, but she had hesitated because she never liked to be the one to arouse her cousin.

Now, she almost petted the camera as she returned with it. She loved it and was already looking forward to the day when she could own one herself, for she had made up her mind, since Walker had been giving her instructions to learn all she possibly could about taking pictures. This was the reason she took pictures of everyone and everything she saw until Walker declared that the authorities would be questioning her on suspicion that she was a spy of some sort.

"Me, a spy?" Nan laughed at the thought.

"Well, you do look harmless," Walker agreed, "but then strange things do happen, especially to people who spend all their time taking pictures. How many have you got now?"

"Oh, I don't know," Nan laughed.

"Come on, 'fess up'," Walker urged.

"Let's see there must be a dozen rolls upstairs," Nan admitted. "It will cost a fortune to develop them, won't it?"

"What do you say to my buying some developer and pans and whatever else is needed and taking them along to the hacienda with us?" Walker asked. "We could develop all your films there then, for practically nothing."

"I'd like that," Nan agreed enthusiastically, "but I thought you had some big story you were going to work on down there."

"Oh, that can wait." Walker Jamieson acted as though stories did wait for people and laughed at himself while he did it. "Anyway it will only take a jiffy to teach you all I know about the photography business."

"All right then," Nan agreed.

So it came about that Nan and Walker went to the hacienda supplied with everything to develop pictures. How fortunate this was! But then that story belongs to later chapters.

"Well, eagle eye, how's the camera working this morning?" Laura inquired as Nan and Walker went out into the lovely patio of their hotel. "Want to take some pictures of me draped around one of those tall white pillars?"

"Do one of you strung from that balcony, up there, kid," Walker offered generously.

"Thank you, kind sir," Laura replied graciously, "but since I'm going to need my neck for a little while longer, I must refuse--with regret of course."

"On second thought, perhaps that is best," Walker agreed. "It would be a shame to spoil this lovely scene this fine morning."

"It is pretty, isn't it?" Nan looked about her with great satisfaction. The patio or courtyard so familiar to Spain is a part of the Mexican scene too, and this one where Nan was taking pictures was particularly lovely with its gay flowers, deep green foliage, and pond all surrounded by the pinkish colored walls of the hotel itself.

"Oh, but I hate to leave all this," Nan remarked when the pictures were taken and she and Laura and Walker were returning to the hotel lobby.

"And so do we," the other girls chorused, as the party all came together.

"Ah, you go, but you return." Walker sounded quite poetic as he said this. "And then, remember, you have no conception of the adventures the hacienda holds in store for you."

"Have you?" The girls looked suspiciously at Walker, when Nan asked this question.

His answer was a mysterious look.