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The Port of Adventure

by C. N. Williamson · English · Gutenberg #11016 · 631,138 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Port of Adventure

Author: C. N. Williamson
        A. M. Williamson


        
Release date: February 1, 2004 [eBook #11016]
                Most recently updated: October 28, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11016

Credits: Produced by Suzanne Shell and PG Distributed Proofreaders


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PORT OF ADVENTURE ***

THE PORT OF ADVENTURE


By

Charles Norris Williamson

and

Alice Muriel Williamson


1913

Published in Great Britain under the title: The Love Pirate.




BY THE SAME AUTHORS

    LORD LOVELAND DISCOVERS AMERICA
    ROSEMARY IN SEARCH OF A FATHER
    LADY BETTY ACROSS THE WATER
    MY FRIEND THE CHAUFFEUR
    THE LIGHTNING CONDUCTOR
    THE GUESTS OF HERCULES
    THE PRINCESS VIRGINIA
    THE GOLDEN SILENCE
    THE CAR OF DESTINY
    THE MOTOR MAID
    THE CHAPERON
    SET IN SILVER
    THE HEATHER MOON

TO

THREE FRIENDS IN CALIFORNIA

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

    I. IN A GARDEN
    II. NICK
    III. THE ANNIVERSARY
    IV. A GIRL IN MOURNING
    V. WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT
    VI. WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED
    VII. A POLICE MYSTERY
    VIII. THE GOLD BAG COMEDY
    IX. THE LAST ACT OF THE GOLD BAG COMEDY
    X. WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING
    XI. THE MAN AT THE WHEEL
    XII. THE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY OF MAKE-BELIEVE
    XIII. FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMATIC EFFECT
    XIV. THE MYSTERY OF SAN MIGUEL
    XV. THE WISE BIRD IN THE DARK
    XVI. ANGELA AT HER WORST
    XVII. SEVENTEEN-MILE DRIVE
    XVIII. LA DONNA È MOBILE
    XIX. THE CITY OF ROMANCE
    XX. THE DOOR WITH THE RED LABEL
    XXI. "WHO IS MRS. MAY?"
    XXII. THE BOX OF MYSTERY
    XXIII. THE HAPPY VALLEY
    XXIV. THE BEST THING IN HER LIFE
    XXV. THE BROKEN MELODY
    XXVI. AN INVITATION FROM CARMEN
    XXVII. SIMEON HARP
    XXVIII. THE DARK CLOUD IN THE CRYSTAL
    XXIX. THE PARTING OF THE WAYS
    XXX. THE MAKING OF A GENTLEMAN
    XXXI. THE BREAKING OF THE SPELL
    XXXII. AN END--AND A BEGINNING


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

"Nick thought her adorable in her gray motor bonnet"

"Santa Barbara Mission, with its history and romance"

"Angela was enchanted with the peninsula of Monterey"

"They weren't trees, but people, either nymphs or witches"

"The world was a sea, billowing with mountains"




PROLOGUE

On a great ship a woman sailed away from the Old World, wishing to forget.
In her mind was the thought of a far-off place toward which she was
travelling. There were no figures in this mental picture. She painted it
as a mere flowery background; for she was very tired of people.

In the New World, a man lived and worked, and dreamed--when he had time.

Between this woman and this man lay six thousand miles of land and sea.
They were two, among many millions, and they did not know of each other's
existence. There was no visible reason why they ever should know, or why
they should ever meet. Yet, sometimes when the moon shone on the sea, the
woman said to herself that the bright path paving the water with gold
seemed to lead on and on beyond the horizon, as if it might go all the way
to the Golden Gate. And the Golden Gate is the Port of Adventure, where
every unexpected thing can happen.




I

IN A GARDEN


"I wonder what makes Nick so late?" Carmen Gaylor thought, hovering in the
doorway between the dim, cool hall and the huge veranda that was like an
out-of-doors drawing-room.

Though she spoke English well--almost as well as if she had not been born
in Spain and made her greatest successes in the City of Mexico--Carmen
thought in Spanish, for her heart was Spanish, and her beauty too.

She was always handsome, but she was beautiful as she came out into the
sunset gold which seemed meant for her, as stage lights are turned on for
the heroine of a play; and there was something about Carmen which
suggested strong drama. Even the setting in which she framed herself was
like an ideal scene for a first act.

The house was not very old, and not really Spanish, but it had been
designed by an architect who knew Carmen, with the purpose of giving a
Spanish effect. He had known exactly the sort of background to suit her, a
background as expensive as picturesque; a millionaire husband had paid for
it. There were many verandas and pergolas, but this immense out-of-doors
room had wide archways instead of pillars, curtained with white and purple
passion flowers; and the creamy stucco of the house-wall, and the ruddy
Spanish tiles, which already looked mellow with age, were half hidden with
climbing roses and grapevines.

Three shallow steps of pansy-coloured bricks went all the length of the
gallery, descending to a terrace floored with the same brick, which held
dim tints of purple, old rose, gray and yellow, almost like a faded
Persian rug.

When Carmen had looked past the fountain across the lawn, down the path
cut between pink oleanders, where the man she expected ought to appear,
she trailed her white dress over terrace and grass to peer under the green
roof of the bamboo forest. It was like a temple with tall pillars of
priceless jade that supported a roof of the same gray-green, starred in a
vague pattern with the jewels of sunset. Carmen did not see the beauty of
the magic temple, though she was conscious of her own. She hated to think
that Nick Hilliard should keep her waiting, and there was cruelty in the
clutch she made at a cluster of orange blossoms as she passed a long row
of trees in terra-cotta pots on the terrace. Under the bamboos she
scattered a handful of creamy petals on the golden brown earth, and rubbed
them into the ground with the point of her bronze shoe. Then she held up
her hand to her face, to smell the sweetness crushed out of the blossoms.

Why didn't Nick come?

There was a short cut leading from the land which she had selected off her
own immense ranch to sell to Nick Hilliard, and this way he sometimes took
if he were in a hurry. But she knew that he loved the path between the
pink walls of oleander, and preferred to come by it, though it was
longer. He ought to have been with her at least ten minutes ago, for she
had asked him to come early. She had said in the letter which she gave old
Simeon Harp to take to Nick, "This is your last night. There are a great,
great many things I want to talk to you about." But there was only one
thing about which she wished Nick Hilliard to talk to her, and there were
two reasons why she expected him to talk of it to-night.

One reason was, because he was going East, and planned to be gone a month,
a dreadful plan which she feared and detested. The second reason concerned
the anniversary of a certain event. Some people would have called the
event a tragedy, but to Carmen it had made life worth living. Other
people's tragedies were shadowy affairs to her, if she had not to suffer
from them.

It was one of her pleasures to dress beautifully, in a style that might
have seemed exaggerated on a different type of woman, and would have been
extravagant for any except the mistress of a fortune. But never had Carmen
taken more pains than to-night, when she expected only one guest. Her
white chiffon and silver tissue might have been a wedding gown. She adored
jewellery, and had been almost a slave to her love for it, until she began
to value something else more--something which, unfortunately, her money
could not buy, though she hoped and prayed her face might win it. She had
quantities of diamonds, emeralds, and rubies--her favourite stones--but
instinct had told her that even one would spoil the effect she wished to
make to-night. She wore only a long rope of pearls, which would have
suited a bride; and as she stood in the shadow of her bamboo temple, the
pearls drank iridescent lights: green from the jade-coloured trees, pink
from roses trailing over arbours, and gold from the California poppies
thick among the grass.

Of course, any one of many reasonable things might have happened to delay
Nick. He was busy, busier even than when he had been foreman of the Gaylor
ranch a year ago, but Carmen could not bear to think that he would let
mere reasonable things keep him away from her, just this night of all
others. For exactly a year--a year to-day, a year this morning, so it was
already more than a year--she had ceased to be a slave, and she had had
everything she wanted, except one thing. Perhaps she had that too, yet she
was not sure: and she could hardly wait to be sure. Nobody but Nick could
make her so, and he ought to be in joyful haste to do it. He was not cold
blooded. One could not look at Nick and think him that, yet to her he
sometimes seemed indifferent. Carmen made herself believe that it was his
respect which held him back. How desperately she wanted to know! Yet there
was a strange pleasure in not knowing, such as she might never feel again,
when she was sure.

Suddenly, far off, there was a rustling in the bamboo forest. A figure
like a shadow, but darker than other shadows, moved in the distance.
Carmen's heart jumped. She took a step forward, then stopped. It was not
Nick Hilliard after all, but old Simeon Harp, the squirrel poisoner,
coming from the direction of Nick's ranch, bringing her a message, maybe.
She felt she could not possibly bear it if Nick were not coming, and she
hated him at the bare thought that he might send an excuse at the last
moment.

"What is it, Sim?" she called out sharply, as the queer, gnarled figure of
the old man hobbled nearer.

"Nothing, my lady," Simeon Harp answered in the husky voice of one who is
or has been a drunkard. "Nothing, only I was over at Nick's finishin' up a
bit of my work, and he said, would I tell you he was sorry to be late.
He's had somebody with him all afternoon, and no time to pack till just
now. But he'll be along presently."

Harp was an Englishman, with some fading signs about him of decent birth,
decent education and upbringing, but such signs were blurred and almost
obliterated by the habits which had degraded him. He would have been dead
or in prison or the poorhouse years ago if Carmen had not chosen to rescue
him, more through a whim than from genuine charity. Her mother's people
had been English, and somehow she had not cared to see an Englishman
thrown to the dogs in this country which was not hers nor his. In days
when her word was law for the infatuated and brutal man whose death
anniversary it now was, this bit of human driftwood--failure, drunkard,
rascal--had been found trespassing on the ranch. If Carmen had not chosen
to show her power over old "Grizzly Gaylor" by protecting the poor wretch,
Harp would have met the fate he probably deserved. But she had amused
herself, and saved him. Sick and forlorn, he had been nursed back to
something like health in the house of one among many gardeners. Since then
he had been her slave, her dog. He called her "my lady," and she rather
liked the name. She liked the worshipping admiration in the red-lidded
eyes which had once been handsome, and she believed, what he often said,
that there was nothing on earth he wouldn't do for her. Once or twice the
thought had pierced her brain like a sharp needle, that perhaps he had
already done a thing for her--a great thing. But it was better not to
know, not even to guess. Fortunately the idea had apparently never
occurred to any one else, and of course it never could now. Yet there had
been a very curious look in Simeon Harp's eyes a year ago when---- ... Not
that it proved anything. There was always a more or less curious look in
his eyes. He was altogether a curious person, perhaps a little mad, or, at
any rate, vague. Especially was he vague about his reasons for leaving his
native land to emigrate to America. He said it was so long ago, and he had
gone through so much, that he had forgotten. There are some things it is
as well to forget. Since Carmen had known him, Simeon Harp had tried his
luck as a water diviner, but failing, sometimes when he most wished to
succeed, in that profession, he had now definitely settled down as
squirrel poisoner to the neighbourhood. Those pests to farmers and
ranchmen, ground squirrels, had given the strange old man a chance to
build up a reputation of a sort. As a squirrel poisoner he was a brilliant
success.

"Who gave you permission to call Mr. Hilliard 'Nick'?" Carmen asked, not
very sternly, for she was pleased to have news from the other ranch. After
all, if Nick had had a visitor he might not be to blame.

"Why, everybody calls him 'Nick'," explained Simeon, huskily. "But I
won't, if it isn't your will, my lady."

"Oh, I don't care, if _he_ doesn't. Only----" she broke off, slightly
confused. Even to this old wretch she could not say, "It isn't suitable
that you should use my future husband's Christian name as if he were down
on the same level with a man like you." She could not be sure that Nick
would be her husband, though it seemed practically certain. Besides, if
Hilliard was "Nick" to everybody, it was a token of his popularity; and
Nick himself was the last man to forget that he had risen to his present
place by climbing up from the lowest rung of the ladder--the ladder of
poverty. She could not imagine his "putting on airs," as he would call it,
though she thought it might be better if he were less of the
"hail-fellow-well-met," and more of the master in manner among his own
cattlemen, and particularly with the wild riff-raff that had rushed to his
land with the oil boom.

"Who was with him--some man, I suppose?" she asked of the squirrel
poisoner, who stood quietly adoring her with eyes dimmed by drink and
years. He had so settled down on his rheumatic old joints that he had
become dwarfish in stature as well as gnarled in shape, and looked a
gnomelike thing, gazing up at the tall young woman.

"Oh, yes, it was a man, of course," Simeon assured her. "There couldn't be
any women for him who knows you, it seems to me, my lady. And you were
never as handsome as you are this night. It warms the heart to set eyes on
you, like the wine you give me on your birthdays, to drink your health."

Carmen was pleased with praise, even a squirrel poisoner's praise. She
could never have too much.

"You needn't wait for my birthday," she laughed. "I don't mean to have
another for a good long time, Sim! You can have some of that wine
to-night."

"Thank you, my lady. It's an anniversary, too," he mumbled, lowering his
husky voice for the last words. But Carmen heard them. "You remember
that!" she exclaimed, without stopping to think, or perhaps she would not
have spoken.

"Oh, yes, my lady, I remember," he said. "There's reasons--several good
reasons--why I shan't forget that as long as I live. You see, things was
gettin' pretty bad for you, and so----"

"Don't let's talk of it, Sim!" she broke in sharply.

"No, my lady, we won't," he agreed. "I was only goin' to say, things bein'
so bad made what happened a matter for rejoicin' and not sorrow, to those
who wish you well. That's all--that's all, my lady."

"Thank you, Sim. I know you're fond of me--and grateful," Carmen said.
"Things _were_ bad. I don't pretend to grieve. I shouldn't even have worn
mourning, if Madame Vestris, the great palmist in San Francisco, hadn't
told me it would bring me ill luck not to. I'm glad the year's up. I hate
black! This is a better anniversary than a silly old birthday, Sim!"

"Yes, and that reminds me, my lady," said Simeon, "that I've put together
enough perfect skins of the squirrels I've killed without the dope to make
the grand automobile coat I've been promisin' you so long. Got the last
skin cured to-day, as it happened. Maybe, that'll bring you _good_ luck!"

"Oh, I hope so!" she cried.

"Here's Nick--Mr. Hilliard," Harp announced, nodding his gray head in the
direction of the oleander path, to which Carmen's back was turned as she
stood.

She wheeled quickly, and saw a tall young man coming toward her, with long
strides. Instantly, she forgot Simeon Harp, and did not even see him as he
hobbled away, pulling on to his head the moth-eaten cap of squirrel fur
which he always wore, summer and winter, as if for a sign of his trade.




II

NICK


Nick Hilliard snatched off his sombrero as he came swinging along the
oleander path. He was tall, fully six feet in height, and looked taller
than he was, being lean and hard, with long straight legs which could
carry him very fast over great stretches of country. Also he had a way of
holding his head high, a way which a man gets if he is in the habit of
gazing toward far horizons. He had a well-cut nose, a good chin, and a
mouth that meant strength of purpose, though some of his friends laughed
at him for a "womanish" curve of the upper lip. Luckily Nick did not mind
being laughed at by his friends. His face was almost as brown as his hair,
for the sun had darkened the one and bleached the other; but the hair was
nice hair, with a glow of auburn in it, which contrasted not
uninterestingly with his black, straight brows. It was, however, the
brilliance of the brook-brown eyes which made Nick a handsome man, and not
merely a "good-looking fellow." It was because of his eyes that women
turned in the street for another glance when he went into Bakersfield or
Fresno; but Nick never knew that they turned. He liked pretty girls, and
enjoyed their society, but was too busy to seek it, and had had little of
it in his life. It did not occur to him that he had qualities to attract
women. Indeed, he wasted few thoughts upon himself as an individual; not
enough, perhaps; for he gave his whole attention to his work. Work was
what he liked best, even without the ultimate success it brought, but
lately he had begun to long for a change. He had a strong wish to go East,
and a reason for the wish.

Carmen held out both hands, and enjoyed seeing how white they looked in
Nick's sunburned, slightly freckled ones. He shook hers, frankly, warmly,
and apologized for his "rig," which was certainly far from conventional.
"I'm ashamed of myself for blowin' in on you this way," he said,
"especially as you're so mighty fine. I hope you'll excuse me, for you
know I pull out to-night, and Jim Beach is bringin' the buggy along here
for me, with my grip in it. If I'd piked back home afterward, my visit
with you'd have been a cut game."

"Ah, I'm glad you arranged not to go back," said Carmen. "I want you to
stay with me as long as you can. I like you in those clothes." She smiled
at him as if she would like him in anything; but Nick was thinking about
Jim Beach, wondering if the boy would have trouble with the flea-bitten
gray, which he himself had newly broken to harness.

"All the same," Carmen went on, "though I like them, you haven't got much
vanity if you mean to wear those things to travel East, and land in New
York."

"Why, what's the matter with 'em, Mrs. Gaylor?" Nick asked. He spoke
carelessly, in the matter of accent as well as of his feeling about the
clothes. He cut off his words in a slipshod way, as if he had never had
time to think much about the value or beauty of the English language.
Still, though his speech was not that of a cultivated man, it did not
grate on the ear. His voice was singularly pleasant, even sweet, with
something of boyish gaiety in it.

"The things are all right, Nick, and you're all right in them. You needn't
worry," said Carmen. "Only--well, I don't believe there'll be anything
else like them--or like you either--in New York."

Nick looked himself over indifferently. He wore a "soft" white shirt, with
a low collar turned over a black scarf tied anyhow. There was a leather
belt round his waist, which obviated the need of a waistcoat or
suspenders. His short coat and trousers were of navy blue serge.
Everything he had on was neat and of good material, but Carmen smiled when
she thought of this tall, belted figure, hatted with a gray sombrero on
the back of its head, arriving at one of the best hotels in New York. Nick
was pretty sure to go to one of the best hotels. He wanted to see life, no
doubt, and get his money's worth. Her smile was as tender as Carmen's
smile could be, however, and she was pleased that he was not "dressing up"
to make an impression on pretty women in the East.

"I don't care what anybody thinks about me in New York," said he. "As long
as _you_ excuse me for not having on my Sunday-go-to-meeting rags to dine
with you, I don't mind the rest."

"I thought you were never coming," she said, changing the subject.

"So did I, by George! I thought the fellow'd never go."

"Was it a deputation to say good-bye?"

"Lord, no, Mrs. Gaylor! It was a chap you don't know, I guess. I only ran
up against him lately, since I sold my gusher to the United Oil Company.
He's their lawyer--and does some work for the railroad too. Smart sort of
man he seems to be, though kind of stiff when you first know him: between
forty and forty-five, maybe: name's Henry Morehouse, a brother of a bank
manager in San Francisco."

"James Morehouse the banker is a very rich, important man," said Carmen,
somewhat impressed by the idea of Nick's new friend who had stayed too
long. "I've never met his family myself. You know how close I was kept
till a year ago. But I've heard of them. They're in with the Falconer set
and that lot, so it shows they're smart. What does Henry Morehouse want,
making up to you, Nick?"

"It was oil business brought us together and he seemed to take a sort of
likin' to me. We care about some o' the same things--books and that. Now
he's going East--maybe on more oil business. Anyhow, he proposes we share
a stateroom on the Limited, and he's been recommendin' his hotel in New
York. I was kind of plannin' to be a swell, and hang out at the
Waldorf-Astoria, to see the nobs at home. But his place sounds nice, and I
like bein' with him pretty well. He's lit up with bright ideas and maybe
he'll pass on some to me. His business won't keep him long, he thinks; and
he's promised his brother James to look after a lady who's landing from
Europe about the time we're due in New York. He'll meet her ship; and if
she doesn't want to stay East any length of time, he'll bring her back to
California. She means to settle out here."

Carmen's face hardened into anxious lines, though she kept up a smile of
interest. She looked older than she had looked when she held out her hands
to Nick. She had been about twenty-six then. Now she was over thirty.

"Is the lady young or old?" she asked.

"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. And
Carmen looked back at him with her big, splendid eyes.

It was a man's look he gave her, a man's look at a woman; but not a man's
look at the woman he wants.

"No," he answered. "They're not stars. They're more like the sun at noon
in midsummer, when so many flowers are pourin' out perfume you can hardly
keep your senses."

Carmen was no longer hurt. "That's the best compliment I ever had, and
I've had a good many," she laughed. "Besides--coming from you, Nick! I
believe it's the first you ever paid me right out in so many words."

"Was it a compliment?" Nick asked doubtfully and boyishly. "Well, I'm real
glad I was smart enough to bring one off. I spoke out just what came into
my mind, and I'd have felt mighty bad if you'd been cross."

"I'm not cross!" she assured him. "I'd rather be a woman--for you--than an
angel. Angels are cold, far-off, impossible things that men can't grasp.
Besides, their wings would probably moult."

Nick laughed, a pleasant, soft laugh, half under his breath. "Say, I don't
picture angels with wings! The sort that flits into my mind when I'm tired
out after a right hard day and feel kind of lonesome for something
beautiful, I don't know hardly what--only something I've never had--that
sort of angel is a woman, too, and not cold, though far above me, of
course. She has starry eyes and moonlight hair--lots of it, hanging down
in waves that could almost drown her. But I guess, after all--as you
say--that sort's not my line. I'll never come in the light she makes with
her shining, and if I should by accident, she wouldn't go shooting any of
her starry glances my way."

Carmen was vexed again. "I didn't know you were so sentimental, Nick!"

He looked half ashamed.

"Well, I didn't know I was, either, till it popped out," he grinned. "But
I suppose 'most every man has sentimental spells. Maybe, even, he wouldn't
be worth his salt if he hadn't. Sometimes I think that way. But my spells
don't come on often. When they do, it's generally nights in spring--like
this, when special kinds of night-thoughts come flyin' along like
moths--thoughts about past and future. But lately, since that blessed
little oil town has been croppin' up like a bed of mushrooms round my big
gusher--or rather, the company's gusher, as it is now--I've had my mind on
that more than anything else, unless it's been my ditches. Gee! there's as
much romance about irrigation in this country, I guess, as there is about
angels which you can see only in dreams; for you see every day, when
you're wide awake, the miracle of your ditches. You just watch your desert
stretches or your meanest grazin' meadows turn into fairyland. I say, Mrs.
Gaylor, have you ever read a mighty fine book--old but good and fresh as
to-morrow's bread--called _The Arabian Nights?_"

"I don't know. I dare say I read some of it when I was a little girl,"
replied Carmen, wondering what Nick was leading up to. "It's for children,
isn't it?"

"I reckon it's for every one with the right stuff in 'em," said Nick.
"Anyhow, I haven't grown up enough to get beyond it. I don't mean ever to
turn the boy that lives inside of me out-of-doors. If I ever do anything
to make him so mad that he quits, I'll be finished--dried up. That book,
_The Arabian Nights_, has got a dead clinch on me. You know, when I run
into Bakersfield, I like to have a browse in the bookstores. It sort of
rests me, and seein' the pictures in that book made me buy it--a birthday
present for my affectionate self----"

"Your birthday!" Carmen broke in, tired of this book talk, but not tired
of anything that concerned him. "You never told me. That was bad of you.
How old, Nick? I'm not sure to a year or so."

"Twenty-nine. Quite some age, isn't it? But there's lots I want to do
before I'm old. I don't know, though, as I mean ever to be old."

"Of course, you never will be." Carmen agreed with him aloud, but she was
thinking in an undertone: "Only twenty-nine, and I'm thirty-three. He
won't be old ever, or for a long time, but I will. I'm that kind, I'm
afraid. My mother was. I've got no time to lose; but to-day's mine. Nick
must love me really, though maybe he's too used to me to know it, without
being stirred up by something unusual. But I'll try my hardest to make him
know it to-night."

"Go on about your 'Arabian Nights,'" she said, to give herself time for
the arranging of her tactics.

"Oh, well, all I really began to say was this: I was reading the story of
Aladdin and an enchanted cave of jewels he dropped into. There was a magic
ring and a lamp in the story too, that you could rub and get pretty near
anything you wanted; so I was thinking this irrigation business of ours in
California is like rubbing that lamp. It throws open doors of dark caves
in deserts, and gives up enchanted gardens full of jewelled fruit and
flowers. Then rub the smoky old lamp again and you get a spout of
oil--another gift, which makes you feel as if a genie'd chucked it to you.
Look at my gusher, for instance! Just think, Mrs. Gaylor, if you don't
mind my talking this way about, myself--you sold me my land, sliced it
right off your own ranch--let me have it darn cheap, too, when the boss
died----"

"I wanted to keep you as near as possible, Nick, when people began to be
silly and say I oughtn't to have a young man like you on the place as
foreman, with me alone, and Eld gone. I needed you badly, and I'd have
been glad to give you land for nothing if you'd have taken it. Gracious!
I've got so much left I don't know what to do with it, or wouldn't if you
weren't where you can advise me."

"That's your generous way of puttin' things," said Nick. "And it was
walkin' along toward you, brought up these fairy-book thoughts so strong.
My land's all right, though my house is a shack and I haven't got any
flower-garden except in my head. But over here is another world; and I was
sayin' to myself, how I owe the biggest things of my life to you. True, I
was taking out my wages in calves while the boss was alive, and he was
lettin' me put my brand on 'em by the hundred. But square as he was with
me, he'd never have sold the land for the price you did. Not only that,
but when I struck oil, a month or so after he went, look what happened. I
hadn't the capital to do any good. 'Twas you put the money in my hand for
the well-sinking and----"

"But you insisted on mortgaging every acre you bought--your cattle and
everything you had, to me; so that took away the credit," cried Carmen,
touched by his gratitude, and happy in the renewed assurance that this man
was hers. "Besides, all you did and spent seemed likely to harm more than
help, when everybody said you wouldn't get enough oil to pay for sinking
your wells. It was only when the gusher burst out by accident and took
every one by surprise that your troubles were over."

"If there's any such thing as accident," Nick mumbled, his eyes far away
from Carmen. "The longer I live, the more I think there isn't. It's all
arranged by Something Big up there beyond where the sun's sinking and the
moon's rising. But maybe you'll say that's sentimental, like the
angel-thought. I don't mean it that way, though I've got an almighty lot
to thank the Something for--as well as to thank you."

"It wasn't I who took the gusher off your hands, anyhow, and saved you the
expense of coping with it," said Carmen. "So I suppose you think it was
Heaven sent you those men to buy what oil land you wanted to sell, and
start Lucky Star City."

"I guess that's Who it was. Not that I deserve any special kindness from
that quarter," Nick laughed. "My mother used to talk a lot about those
things, you know, and though I was only a little shaver when she died,
I've remembered most all that was connected with her."

Carmen did not speak. She knew the history of Nick's terrible childhood
and early youth. Long ago he had told her how his grandfather, a
California pioneer of good Southern family, a successful judge, had turned
an only son away, penniless, because the boy of twenty chose to take for
a wife a pretty little dressmaker, of no family at all; how the couple had
gone East, to live on a few hundred dollars left to the boy by an aunt;
how he had hoped and expected to succeed in New York as a journalist and
writer; how he had failed and starved with his bride; how he had faded out
of life while Nick was a baby; how the girl-widow had taken in sewing to
support her child, and when she couldn't get that, had washed or scrubbed;
and how, as Nick became a wise, worried old man of four or five years, he
had been able to help earn the family living by selling the newspapers
which had refused his dead father's contributions. Nick had not enlarged
upon his adventures after this stage of his youthful career, merely
sketching them in the baldest manner, when it had been necessary to
present his credentials to the "boss"--"old Grizzly Gaylor." But in one
way or other it had leaked out that the boy had learned to read and write
and cipher at a night school in New York, not having time for such
"frills" as schooling by day. And Carmen could not help knowing that he
had gone on studying, and thinking out his own rather queer ideas about
heaven and earth, ever since, in spite of the most strenuous
interruptions--for she had been ashamed occasionally by happening to
discover how much Nick knew. He had read everybody and everything from
Plato to Schopenhauer, whereas it bored Carmen unspeakably to read
anything except novels, and verses which she liked sometimes in magazines,
because their pathos or passion might have been written round her.

She knew how Nick, as a little boy, had swept shops and found all sorts of
odd jobs; how he had been errand boy, and district messenger in a uniform
of which he had been proud because it made him feel "almost like a
soldier"; how after his mother's death he had got his long-cherished wish
to "go West," by working on the railway and eventually becoming a
brakesman. After that short experience "cowpunching" days had come, and
after several years in a subordinate position on Eldridge Gaylor's ranch
he had at twenty-five been made foreman. But by this time he was already a
familiar figure in her life--the life which she had chosen, and hated
after it was chosen, except for Nick Hilliard, who had always loomed large
in it, though she saw little of him until a year ago.

Except perhaps with the old man she had married for his money and hated
for his brutality, Carmen believed that Nick Hilliard's "ways" and good
looks had helped, even more than his courage and cleverness, to win him
success and recognition. With Eldridge Gaylor it had been different. He
thought of no man's pleasant looks or ways, though even upon the
corrugated iron of his nature, a woman's beauty had had influence, and he
had married Carmen off the comic opera stage, in the City of Mexico, where
he had gone to see a great bullfight ten years ago. When he had brought
her home to his famous ranch, willing for a while to be her slave and give
her everything she wanted, she had found Nick a cowpuncher among other
cowpunchers. And she had seen how he made "old Grizzly" respect him. But
his promotion had come through a row and an attempt at murdering the
"boss" by a drunken foreman driven mad by a blow from the short whip
Gaylor carried about the ranch. Nick had saved his employer's life,
risking his own--for he was unarmed at the moment; and to his surprise
the reward had been the discharged foreman's place. Carmen shivered a
little even now, remembering that night, and how she had worshipped Nick
for his bravery. She had never since ceased to worship him, though he had
done a great many things which irritated her extremely, such as saving
"old Grizzly's" life once again: but those years were past.

As she wondered whether Nick would like her to talk with him about his
mother, or whether that subject was too delicate to pursue, a musical
Japanese gong sounded from a side gallery.

"Oh, it must be half-past seven," she said. "I ordered dinner early, so we
could talk afterward by moonlight (I love talking in moonlight!) before
the time for you to go. You can give me your arm, if you like, Nick."

Of course, Nick "liked," though he had never taken a lady to dinner in
that way before, and he felt proud, if a little awkward, as a bare, creamy
arm laid itself on his coat-sleeve.

Slowly and without speaking, they walked along a flower-bordered path that
skirted the lawn on one side, and on the other a canal full to the brim of
glittering water, which reflected the sky and the two figures.

It was a place and an hour made for love.




III

THE ANNIVERSARY


They did not dine in the house, though one of the show rooms was a huge
dining-hall like a glorified refectory in an old Spanish mission. After
the beginning of April, and sometimes long before, Carmen seldom took a
meal indoors, unless she was attacked by one of her fierce fits of
depression, and had a whim to hate the sun.

She and Nick mounted the steps, passed the fountain which spouted diamond
spray through a round head made of some flowering water-plant, went on
round a corner, Carmen's dress brushing fallen camellia petals or pink
shells of broken roses, and so came to another veranda. This was pergola
as well. It had no roof but beams of old Spanish chestnut, so draped with
wistaria and roses that the whole out-of-doors room was canopied with
leaves and hanging clusters of flowers. Only a faint filtering of sun or
moonshine could steal through, and such rays as penetrated seemed to be
dyed pink and purple by draining through the flowers.

Suspended from the beams were big iridescent pearl-shells, known in
southern California as "abalone," and in the rainbow-tinted half-globes
gleamed electric lights, subdued by dull gold glass; but neither these nor
the tall shaded lamps on the low wall of the terrace, nor the hidden
electric bulbs in the fountain basin, were allowed to shine out yet. As
Carmen said, she liked to talk by moonlight; and now, over in the east,
behind magnolia and palm trees, the moon had been born while the sun died
in the west.

If it had been her wedding-night dinner Carmen could not have been more
careful in ordering the different dishes and planning the decorations of
the table. Usually whether she were alone or had guests (as she had
sometimes, though "society" had never taken her up), she left everything
to her Chinese head-cook, who was a worthy rival of any Parisian _chef_;
and the beautifying of her table to the artistic Japanese youth whose one
business in life was to think out new flower-combinations. This, however,
was not only the anniversary of the day which had given her freedom, but
she hoped it might be one to remember for a sweeter reason. Besides, Nick
Hilliard was to be enchanted, to be made conscious of himself and her, as
the only man, the only woman, worth thinking of in the world.

The air was sweet with the fragrance of orange-blossoms, and the deep-red
velvet roses which were Carmen's own flowers. Nick was a water drinker by
preference and because he was an open-air man, also because it had been
necessary for him to set an example; but to-night Carmen made him sip a
little iced champagne, and she drank to the success of his first visit
East since boyhood--to his safe and speedy home-coming.

"Because this is home, Nick; your home," she said. "It would kill me if
you saw any place you liked better, and if you made up your mind that you
wanted to sell out and live in New York."

"No fear," said Nick. "No man ever left paradise unless he was driven out
by flaming swords."

"Then you won't be gone long?" she asked, playing with the abalone chowder
on her plate.

"Not more than a month anyhow; maybe a few days less if I get homesick;
though it would hardly be worth while to go so far for a shorter time,
after staying West so many years without a single break. First, I count on
poking round in some of our old haunts--poor mother's and mine--and then,
when I am way down in the dumps I'll yank myself up again with a little
fun--theatres and roof-gardens and such-like."

"You've seen good plays in San Francisco," said Carmen.

"Yes, San Franciso's a great place. Only I haven't had time to go there
once in a blue moon. And just now it's those old associations
pulling--something seems drawing and drawing me to the East. It's like a
voice calling my name--'Nick--Nick, I want you. Come!' Funny, isn't it?"

Carmen was not sure that it was funny. For she was superstitious beyond
all things; and at that moment it happened that she could hear the moaning
note of doves--a sound which she believed always brought her bad luck.

"What kind of a voice is it?" she asked, laughing rather shrilly. "Not a
woman's, I hope?"

"I guess it's that angel's I was telling you about." Nick smiled.

Carmen motioned the Chinese butler to fill her guest's glass, which he had
hardly touched.

"Don't let's talk any more of angels," she said. "Let's talk of me, and
you. Nick, do you know what to-night is? A year since I was free. 'At the
end of a year' I always said to myself. 'Twelve long months of
hypocritical respect paid to the memory of a person who was more brute
than man. But not a day more, when the twelve months are over.
Then--happiness--new life!' Don't you consider I'm justified in feeling
like that?"

Nick thought for a moment, not looking at Carmen. He gazed out through the
torn curtain of roses into the silver of the moonlight, over the wide lawn
with its fountains, toward the walls of trees which screened from sight
the rolling billows of the ranch-meadows with their cattle, their shining,
canal-like irrigation-ditches, their golden grain, their alfalfa, their
fruit and flowers. All this wealth and much more old Grizzly Gaylor had
given the pretty young singer in exchange for her beauty and the pleasure
of snatching her away from other men. Despite the "boss's" notorious
failings, it grated on Hilliard to hear Carmen rejoice aloud because her
husband was underground, and she was free of him now that his back was
turned forever.

"Probably you're right," Nick said. "Yet--it kind of rubs me up the wrong
way to listen to you talkin' like that, in particular just this very
night."

"Why in particular this very night?" she asked sharply.

"Well--I guess it's only conventional, because, why are twelve months more
important than fourteen or any other number? But it's the feeling of an
anniversary, I suppose. A year ago to-day he breathed his last--and he
didn't want to die. It sort of seems as if to-day ought to be sacred to
him, no matter what he was. And--maybe I'm a dashed hypocrite and don't
know it, but it doesn't suit my ideas of you to get the feeling that you
set up to-night as festival. I expect I'm wrong, though, and you ought to
be lecturin' me instead of me you."

"I don't want to lecture you, Nick, whether you understand me or not,"
said Carmen. But the dinner and the meaning of the feast were spoilt for
her in an instant. She could have bitten her tongue out because it had
spoken the wrong words--words which jarred on Nick at the very moment when
she most wished to charm him. She knew, with a heavy weight of
premonition, that this moonlight talk she had planned would give her
nothing worth having now. To try to make Nick feel her power would do more
harm than good, because the night had suddenly become haunted by the
spirit of the dead man. "I'm punished," she thought, superstitiously. But
she exerted herself to be cheerful, lest Nick should go East disgusted
with her. And that would be the end of all.




IV

A GIRL IN MOURNING


Angela May sat in her chair on the promenade-deck of the _Adriatic_ and
felt peacefully conscious that she was resting body and brain.

The ship was not crowded, for it was spring, and the great tide of travel
had turned in the opposite direction--toward Europe. On either side of her
chair were several which were unoccupied, and a soothing silence hovered
round her, through which she could listen to the whisper of the sea as the
ship glided on to the land of hope.

Loneliness gave a real joy to Angela; for, young as she was, she had lived
through an ordeal, and had taken a step which meant high nervous tension
leading up to a supreme decision. She was glad all was over, and well
over; desperately glad that her courage had not failed.

"Oh, how thankful I am!" she said again and again, under her breath.
Still, she vaguely envied some of the family parties on the ship, who
appeared happy and united. Not that she wanted them to talk to her. Witty,
lively people could be very nice when you were in the mood for them, but
agonizing when you were not; and since it wasn't permissible to cover
human beings up like canaries when you had tired of them, or send them
away like children when they had prattled enough, Angela cuddled down
among her cushions and rugs, glad to be let alone for the first time in
her life. But there was a young mother with a small imp of a curly-haired
girl, who fascinated her, and made her think. Once, when the imp fell on
the deck, to be caught up and kissed until a wail ended in a laugh, Angela
said to herself, "If my mother had been like that, everything would have
been different for me."

Saunterers for exercise or flirtation often turned for a glance at Angela.
What they saw was a slim girl, with pearly fair skin, big gray eyes,
quantities of wavy hair of so pale a yellow-brown that it was like gold
under the mourning hat she wore. Her low black collar made the slender
throat that rose out of it white as a lily. The oval of her face was
perfect, and when she read or closed her eyes, as she sometimes did, the
long lashes, many shades darker than her hair, and the delicate arch of
the brown eyebrows, gave her the soft, sweet look of a child asleep.

Always the glances were more admiring than curious; but they were curious,
too, for every one was wondering who she was. In spite of her youth, there
was something of pride and distinction about her which made it seem that
she could not be an ordinary sort of person you had never heard of; a mere
Miss Smith or Mrs. Brown. Yet all the "swells" on board had been duly
accounted for and recognized. She was not one of them.

"What a pretty girl!" people said. "And she seems to be travelling alone,
unless her friends are too sick to come out of their cabins. Apparently
she hasn't even brought a maid--yet what lovely clothes she has, though so
simple, and all black. Perhaps she's in mourning for her father or her
mother, or some near relation. She's too young to be a widow!"

Angela did not much mind these glances, or this gentle curiosity, for no
normal woman objects to being thought pretty. But it was delightful to
feel sure that no one knew who she was. If she were on the passenger-list
as the Princess di Sereno she would be more stared at and bothered than
that poor, fat Duchess of Dorsetshire, who was too near-sighted to
recognize her at a distance, thank goodness. Each glance thrown her way
would have been an annoyance, for there would have been nothing flattering
in any spice of interest her title gave. Some silly creatures might have
stared at her because she was a princess; but--far worse--others would
have looked because they knew all about her.

These would have buzzed: "Why, that's the Princess di Sereno, don't you
know, the only child of the California millionaire who died about ten
years ago, so suddenly while his wife and little daughter were in Europe!
The girl married that Roman prince, Paolo di Sereno, who used to make such
a sensation going about in an aeroplane, and gambling high at Monte
Carlo--awfully handsome man, a lot older than she. He must have been
nearly forty, and she seventeen, when she married him. Her mother made the
match, of course: girl just out of school--the wedding wasn't six weeks
after she was presented in England. The prince met her there, has English
relations, like most of the Roman nobility. But the interesting part of
the story is this: they never lived together as husband and wife. The
bride either found out some secret the prince had kept from her (which is
what people believe), or else there was a mysterious row the first hour
after the wedding. Anyhow, something happened; he went off the same day
and left her with her mother. Afterward, he came back; but it was an open
secret that the two were no more than strangers, or, you might say, polite
acquaintances, though they lived at opposite ends of his palace in Rome,
which her money restored, and his country place near Frascati. There was
never the least scandal, only wild curiosity. Now she has cut the whole
thing. Apparently couldn't stand the empty sort of life, or else he did
something worse than usual, at which she drew the line."

Angela did not much care whether people in Rome knew the truth or not.
That no longer greatly mattered to her, because she meant never, never to
go back to Rome, or to see Paolo di Sereno, or any of his friends--who had
never really been her friends. But she did not want people on the ship to
know, because she was tired of being talked about, and her hope was to
begin a new and different life. For herself, she had nothing to conceal;
but, she had never felt any pride or pleasure in being a princess, and
after the flatteries and disillusions, the miseries and foolish
extravagances of the last hateful, brilliant six years, everything
connected with them, and the historic title her dead father's money had
bought, was being eagerly obliterated by Franklin Merriam's daughter. She
knew little about her forebears on her father's side, except that they
were English, whereas Paolo had centuries behind him crammed full of
glorious ancestors whose deeds were celebrated on tapestries of great
beauty and value. Her one tolerable memory of Paolo was that he had never
touched her hand since their marriage; but the memory of her father was
sacred. She adored him, and was never weary of recalling things he had
said to her, pleasures he had planned for her as a child, and, above all,
his stories of California, whither she was now bound.

Angela had taken the name of "Mrs. May"; May, because May was her
birth-month, and also her middle name given by her father, whereas Angela
had been her mother's choice. Therefore she was just superstitious enough
to feel that "May" might bring happiness, since her father's memory was
the single unshadowed spot in her life of twenty-three years. A brilliant
life it would have seemed to most women, one to be envied; but Angela
could not see why.

The lashes which shaded her slate-gray eyes had that upward curl which
shows an undying sense of humour, and she had been a merry little girl,
with flashes of wit which had enchanted Franklin Merriam before she was
snatched away to Europe at eleven, never to see him again. Even at school
where she had been "dumped" (as Mrs. Merriam's intimate enemies put it),
Angela had kept the girls laughing. Now, though she had imagined her gay
spirit dead with childhood, she began to be visited by its ghost. She
amused herself on shipboard with a thousand things, and a thousand
thoughts which made her feel the best of "chums" with her new friend and
companion, Angela May. "I've come back from twenty-three to seventeen,"
she thought, and pretended that there had never been an Angela di Sereno,
that scornful young person who had forbidden the prince to come near her
on learning that there was another whom he should have married instead of
Millionaire Merriam's daughter.

When she was a little girl in Boston (where Mrs. Merriam had insisted upon
living), Angela used to sit on her father's knee; and as he curled her
yellow hair over his fingers he wove romances of the Golden West,
reluctantly deserted for his wife's sake; and though many illusions had
broken like bright bubbles, this ideal still glittered before Angela's
eyes. She had been promised by her father that she should visit California
with him, when "Mother brought her back from Europe"; but he had died, and
mother had not brought her back; so now she was going to make the
pilgrimage alone. Not only did she intend to see the places her father had
described, but when she had seen all and could choose, she meant to buy
land and make a home for herself, her first real home.

Wherever she decided to live, the house must be like the one where her
father had been born--long and low built of adobe; there must be a patio,
with a fountain in the middle; and the rooms must be kept cool by the roof
of a veranda, shading the windows like a great overhanging eyelid. Lovely
flowers she would have, of course, but the garden must be as unlike an
Italian garden as possible. Italy was beautiful, but she did not wish to
be reminded of that country, or any other in Europe where she had wandered
in search of forgetfulness.

She had little fear that ghosts of the past would come to haunt her in her
new home, for though the Prince di Sereno had once cared for her in his
way, she had struck at his pride and made him hate her in the end. At last
he had been glad to let her go out of his life, for she had made
arrangements by which he kept more than half her money. There was no
danger that he would try to snatch her back again; and as for European
friends and acquaintances, it was unlikely that such worldly persons would
care to come to the place she meant to select. It would be far from the
paths of tourists.

The eight-day voyage passed pleasantly for Angela. She had spoken to no
one except stewards and stewardesses for, taking her meals on deck, she
had not come into contact with other passengers. The mourning she wore for
her mother, who had died four months before in London, seemed to set her
apart from others, though had it not been for the cause of her mourning,
probably she would not now be on her way to America. It was a few weeks
after Mrs. Merriam's death, when she had recovered from the shock which
was hardly sorrow, that Angela said to herself: "Now she is beyond being
grieved by anything I do, and I can go away--for good." For the girl had
been under the frail cold woman's sway, as the strong man, Franklin
Merriam, had been in his time; and Mrs. Merriam had derived such pleasure
from having a daughter who was a Princess di Sereno that Angela could
hardly have found courage to deprive her of it.

At home, both in the country and at her palace in Rome, the Princess had
been waited on by two French maids, one of whom dressed her, while the
other kept her belongings in order. When she travelled, as she often did,
one or both went with her; to Egypt; to Algeria; to Russia; to Paris; or
to England. But "Mrs. May" had no maid; and, landing in New York, it
seemed that she was the only person who did not meet with a welcome from
friends on the dock.

Suddenly, she ceased to enjoy her isolation. For the first time since
leaving Rome "on a long visit to relatives in America" (according to
newspaper paragraphs), the Princess di Sereno did not hug her loneliness
and her secret. She hardly knew what to do as she stood under the big
letter "M" waiting to have her luggage examined. Her fellow "M's" as well
as all the other letters appeared to be having desperate trouble with the
custom-house men, who clawed out the contents of their trunks and then
calmly left the cowed owners to stuff everything back as best they could.

Angela's heart beat fast when her turn came, and she wished for
long-nosed, hard-voiced Josephine as a bulwark; but the ordeal was not as
bad as she expected. She looked at her inquisitor with the air of a hunted
child who had got lost and hardly hoped ever to be found; so the
protective instincts were aroused, and the wind was tempered to the shorn
lamb. In half an hour after the ship had docked, Mrs. May was inquiring of
a large, obliging Irishman (who had a vast store of knowledge concerning
all useful subjects) how on earth she was to secure a cab.

Her hotel was decided upon, and rooms engaged. An old friend of Mrs.
Merriam, a cosmopolitan American woman, had once praised the Hotel
Valmont, Angela had remembered; and driving from Twenty-third Street up
into the Forties, New York was almost as strange to her as if she had
never seen it before. Indeed, she had seen little of it, for the Merriams
had lived in Boston, and Angela was only eleven when she bade her father
and America good-bye. How vividly that day came back to her now! She
could see her father, and feel his kisses as he said, "Never mind, little
girl. When mother brings you back then we'll have the time of our
lives--just you and I--in California together."

But that day did not bear thinking of. And, by and by, rattling through
the bright, busy streets, in the vivifying sunshine, she began to feel
happy again, as well as very young and eager.

"This is the gate of my future, and I'm driving into it," she thought.

The Hotel Valmont, which Mrs. Corning had said was small, loomed imposing
to Angela's eyes, as her taxicab stopped before the ever-revolving glass
wheel of the Fifth Avenue door. The building towered to a height of
sixteen or seventeen storeys at least, and appeared only a lesser mountain
among mountains.

A polite man in livery bowed her through the swift whirl of the glass
wheel, and she found herself in a large hall with floor and walls of
marble. Formally cut laurel-trees grew in huge pots, and the gilded
ceiling was higher than those of the Palazzo di Sereno.

There were many desks, and she explained to one of a dozen clerks that she
was Mrs. A.V. May, who had cabled for a bedroom and sitting-room.

She was expected, and her suite was ready. Would she kindly register? And
the young man, admiring the face framed in gold hair and black straw,
pushed forward a ponderous volume that lay open on the counter. As Angela
pulled off her glove and took the pen, she laid down a gold chain-bag
which she always carried hanging on her arm. Angela was used to it, and
she had no idea that it might be considered ostentatious in travelling. It
was convenient as well as pretty, which was all she thought of; nor did
she notice that several persons grouped near the desks looked at her, and
at the bag, which was edged with diamonds and sapphires.

A diamond or two, and a sapphire or two, sparkled and gleamed on her
fingers as she wrote; but except for her rings and a small, plain brooch,
she had no jewellery which was meant to show. Under the black chiffon of
her blouse, however, there was a glimmer of pearls which she wore night
and day for safety.

"Mrs. A. V. May," she wrote, then paused before giving herself a
habitation. Everybody else on the page was placed as well as named. London
was as good a background as any for an unknown Mrs. May, so she provided
herself with it, and then, moving her arm abruptly, her gold bag fell on
the floor. Naturally, a man who had been leaning on the counter, looking
at Angela, sprang to pick it up. But another man was before him. Pulling
off a wide-brimmed gray hat which had been pushed to the back of his head,
he held out the gold bag a little awkwardly.

"I guess you dropped this, lady," he said.

Angela was on the point of laughing. She was used to dropping her bag a
dozen times a day, and having some one pick it up for her, but it had been
funny to see it snapped away by this tall, oddly clad fellow, from under
the dapper gentleman's rather sharp nose. Of course, she did not laugh,
but smiled gratefully instead, and she could not help staring a little at
the retriever of her lost property. So, also, did the other and smaller
man stare. This person was well dressed, and had a slight, pointed
moustache, like a German officer's.

"Yes. It's mine. Thank you very much," said Angela. And she thought: "What
an extraordinary-looking man. But how handsome! He might be dressed for a
play--only, somehow, he doesn't look like an actor. Whatever he is, he's
the real thing."

The wide gray sombrero remained in the young man's hand. He was so tall
that he made most of those standing near look insignificant. Yet they, on
the other hand, made him conspicuous.

It was a long way up to his face, but when Angela's eyes had climbed to
that height, she saw that it was attractive, and the eyes splendid, even
compelling, so that it was difficult to remove hers at once and discreetly
from their influence.

The type of man was new to her, and the look which he gave her was new,
somehow. His was a wild, uncivilized kind of handsomeness, she thought,
like that of a noble, untamed creature of the forest, changed by
enchantment into a man and thrust into modern clothes. Yet the look he
gave her was not uncivilized, only surprised, rather boyish, and as if the
brilliant eyes had suddenly lit upon something good which they had been
seeking. Very odd, and a little exciting, Angela found the look.

If the young man's clothes were modern, they were far from being
fashionable; not at all the sort of clothes to suit the background of a
marble hall in a New York hotel. His shirt was of some soft white material
which did not seem to be starched, and a low collar was turned down over
a black, loosely tied cravat like a sailor's. Instead of a waistcoat he
wore a leather belt, of the sort in which one would quite expect to see a
knife or revolver sticking out. His blue serge suit was of a country cut,
the trousers rather short and tight for the long, straight legs; and the
shoes were wide in the toe, thick in the sole.

All these details Angela noted in one quick glance; and admiring the tall
brown eccentricity as she might have admired a fine bronze statue out of
place, in the wrong surroundings, she wondered from what sort of niche the
statue had transplanted itself. In her mind there was no room whatever for
the little man with the pointed moustache, so she forgot his existence.

"Mighty pleased to--do any service for you, lady," stammered the bronze
statue, and though his voice was pleasant, it had not the cultured accent
to which Angela was accustomed. Besides, it was quaint to be addressed as
"lady." London cabbies and beggars called one "lidy"; but they were a law
unto themselves. Still it sounded rather nice as he said it: "pleased to
do any service for you, lady."

She nodded politely as she moved away, following the bellboy who had the
key of her rooms, and as she reached the lift, something made her glance
back. The sombrero was on the dark head again, and the head was bent over
the hotel register, where Mrs. May had written her name. The man was
either looking at that or writing his own. Angela inclined to the latter
supposition. Probably this wild creature of forests had just arrived in
New York from somewhere very far away, perhaps from her father's Golden
West, the country of the sun. As the lift flashed her with horrifying
swiftness up to the twelfth floor, she still seemed to hear the echo of
the pleasant voice, saying "Pleased to do any service for you, lady." A
few minutes later, however, she forgot the incident of the dropped bag in
admiring her pretty suite of white and green rooms, the bath, and the
cedar-lined wardrobes in the wall, which she remembered as typically
American. She felt like a child examining a new playhouse. Suddenly she
was sure that she would get on well with Americans, that she would like
them, and they her, though until to-day she had been afraid that her
country-people, in their own land, would seem to her like strangers.
Although she had not made up her mind how long she would stay in New York
before going West, she unpacked a great many things without stopping to
think that perhaps she was giving herself useless trouble. Then, when she
had scattered quantities of dresses, petticoats, hats, and cloaks in both
rooms, she paused bewildered. Everything she had taken out on shipboard
looked wrinkled and rather haggard. She wished, after all, that she had
brought Josephine, though she had not been fond of her, or of the others.
She did not know what to do with the things, and never could she get them
all back again when it should be time to leave the hotel! It was as
Josephine had prophesied. How the Frenchwoman would enjoy saying, "It is
as I warned Madame la Princesse!"

"Perhaps a servant of the hotel would help me," she thought; and a call
through the telephone brought to the door a tall, dark, Irish girl, who
would have been pretty if her eyes and cheeks had not been stained with
crying. At first glance Angela was interested, for she was beginning to
be happy, and could not bear to think that any one who came near her was
miserable. At all times, too, she had quick sympathies, and could read the
secrets of sad or happy eyes in a flash, as she passed them in the street,
though less sensitive persons saw nothing noteworthy; and often she longed
to hurry back to some stranger, as if a voice had cried after her which
she could not let cry in vain. Now, as she talked to the maid about the
unpacking, unspoken sympathy went out from her in a magnetic current which
the Irish girl felt. Her tear-blurred blue eyes fixed themselves on the
young lady in black, and she had a strong, exciting impression that some
blessing hovered near her, which she could take hold of if only she had
courage.

"Indeed, miss, I'll love to help you," she said. "'Twill be a rale
pleasure--and not many comes my way, these days."

"I'm sorry for that," Angela told her. "Perhaps you're homesick. I think
you must have come not long ago from a green island which every one
loves."

"You're right, miss." The Irish eyes brimmed over. "And I'm homesick
enough to die, but not so much fur Oireland, as fur a place I niver set
eyes on."

Angela was interested. "You're homesick for a place you never set eyes on?
Then some one you love must be there."

This time the tears could not be kept back. The young woman had begun her
work of gathering up Angela's belongings, and lest the tears should fall
on a lace nightgown she was folding, she laid it on a chair, to search
wildly for her handkerchief. "Do excuse me, if ye can, miss," she choked.
"I've no right to make a fool o' meself in front of you, but you're that
kind, I got filled up like. It's the State of Oregon I'm thinkin' of, for
the man I crossed the say to marry is there, and now I don't know when we
shall ever see one another."

"Oregon's a long way off," said Angela. "I know that, though I've lived in
Europe most of my life. Only the other day I looked at it on the map."

"Have ye got that map by you, miss?"

"Yes. We'll find it presently, in this mass of books in my cabin trunk.
But I was going to say, though Oregon's ever so far West, the man you came
from Ireland to marry will surely send for you. Then how happy you'll be,
by and by."

"A long by and by, I'm afraid, miss."

"Oh, why? Isn't there money enough?" Angela began to plan how she might
make the course of true love run smooth; though in these days she was not
as rich as she had been.

"There was, to begin with," the girl answered. "You see, miss, he sent for
me to meet him in New York, and 'twas he paid me way over. He'd bought
land in Oregon, and irritated it, as they calls it--and was doin'
wonderful. The idea was he should meet me at the ship, and we'd get
married and go West, man and wife. But his partner cheated him out of his
eyes, and the trick only come out when I was on the water. So instead o'
findin' me Tim I found a letter. The poor boy's had to start all over
again; and I tuk service, waitin' till he can scrape up the money to fetch
me out."

"I may be going quite near Oregon myself before long," said Angela
impulsively. "Do you think you could learn to be my maid, and would you
like to go with me?"

"Like it!" the girl echoed, turning white and then red. "'Twould be
heaven. I'm not too happy here. The housekeeper's got a 'clow' on me. And
indade, I've done a bit of maidin' to a lady in the ould country. I'd work
early and late to please ye, miss!"

"I feel sure you would," Angela said. "But you know, if you're going to be
my maid, you must give up calling me 'miss,' for I am--Mrs. May."

"I beg your pardon, I'm sure, ma'am. But 'twas because ye look so young,
it never entered me head ye could be married, and perhaps even a widow."

Angela did not speak, and at once the girl made sure that she had hit upon
the truth with her last words. The lovely lady was in black for her
husband, to whom she must have been married when almost a child. "My
name's Kate McGinnis, ma'am," she went quickly on, "and though I've got no
recommendations in writin', because I thought to take a husband and not
service, I can get a good word from the priest, and----"

"Your face tells me enough," Angela broke in. "I know you're a good girl,
and that you'll be a comfort to me on the journey. But if you go, you
mustn't expect to get out to Oregon immediately. I mean to travel to
California, and I should like you to stay with me until I settle
somewhere. Then I'll send you to the place where your _fiancé_ lives."

"That's what I'd like best of anything," exclaimed Kate. "Tim ain't ready
yet, but he will be soon--now the worry about payin' the big price of me
railway ticket will be off our minds. Oh, but doesn't it seem too good to
be true?"

"Why not say too good _not_ to be true?" asked Angela, whose optimism
to-day was ready to triumph over past stumbling-blocks. "It's settled,
then--if the hotel will let you off."

"I've giv' in me notice, miss--madam, I mean," replied the girl hastily.
"There's some things I don't think Tim would like about me bein' in a
hotel, and I was lookin' out for a private place. Me time's up here day
after to-morrow. But, oh, ma'am, there's a thing I haven't told
ye--indade, 'twas because I forgot, not that I meant to desave. Maybe,
when ye know what it is ye'll change yer mind about havin' me--and I
couldn't blame ye."

Angela's clear eyes looked full into the clear eyes of the Irish girl. "I
don't believe you can have anything to tell me which will make me want not
to have you. Is it serious?"

"Yes, ma'am, very serious." Kate paused, swallowing heavily. "It's--it's a
cat."

"A cat!" Angela burst out laughing. "How can a cat come between us?"

"A black cat, ma'am named Timmy after me own Tim, who give him to me, a
kitten, three years ago, before he left the ould country. I promised be
this and be that I'd niver part with the crature till Tim and me was made
wan, and I niver have. Neither will I, if I have to starve. But I pay fur
his kape in the hotel, out o' me wages, as if he was a Christian, and so
he is, pretty near. There's nothin' he doesn't know; but I don't suppose
ye'd allow him to travel in the trains--and I couldn't lave him."

To have a travelling cat, and a maid named McGinnis! The idea was
preposterous, but Angela was in a mood to do preposterous things, and
enjoy doing them. "I like you for your loyalty," she said, "and I shall
like Timmy, too. Cats are misunderstood people. They can be splendid
friends. And black cats are supposed to bring luck."

"I should love to have Timmy bring _you_ some, ma'am," said Kate. "Not
that ye need it, of course."

"But I do," Angela answered. "As for you, I shall call you by your first
name. Kate, as if you were a French maid. I like it better than McGinnis."

"Thank you, so do I, ma'am. But it's me Tim has the fine name, which he'll
give me when the right time comes. It's Moriarty, and to my mind there's
none with more music in it. Oh, if ye only knew how happy ye've made me! I
was afraid me name would be as black in yer eyes as the cat, so that's why
I broke it to ye gently, and now I'm rewarded for everything."

Angela laughed again. "I fancied I was all alone in the world," she said
to herself, "and here I am collecting a family."

She had luncheon brought to her own sitting-room, when Kate had put away
everything and gone. Quantities of flowers she ordered, too--American
Beauty roses, which looked extraordinarily intelligent and companionable,
she thought. Then, most of the afternoon she spent in poring over maps,
planning what she called her "pilgrimage"; and a little before six she was
ready to go down and buy her ticket West, at the travel bureau which, she
heard, existed in the hotel. Afterward she meant to take a stroll, and see
Fifth Avenue by sunset.

Not once since entering her rooms had she consciously remembered the
"bronze statue." In the marble hall, however, she recalled him, and
thought most likely he was out amusing himself and seeing New York. But
no; there he was, sitting rather dejectedly in a large rocking-chair; and
as her eyes found him, his found her. Instantly his whole aspect changed.
The statue came to life. His listless expression brightened to the
puzzling intentness with which he had looked at her in the morning. As she
passed near him, on her way to the travel bureau, he got up and stood like
a soldier at attention. Seeing this Angela went by quickly without seeming
to glance at him, for she was afraid that he meant to speak, and she hoped
that he would not, for she did not want to snub him. She need not have
feared, however. He made no sign, but looked at her as if she were a
passing queen, for whom it was a man's duty and pleasure to get to his
feet.

Angela would have bowed in recognition of the morning's courtesy, but
dared not, lest after all he should be encouraged to speak; for his type
was so new to her that she did not understand it in the least. It was,
however, rather an agreeable mystery, and she saw him feature by feature,
without appearing to lift her eyes. It was too bad that he had been
foolish enough to discard his becoming costume of the morning for a
conventional suit of clothes, which, it was painfully certain, he must
have bought ready-made. The things did not fit too well, though they had
probably cost a good deal, and they were astonishingly like advertisements
of men's clothes which Angela had seen in American magazines on shipboard.
They did their best to give him his money's worth, by spoiling his
splendid looks and turning him into something different from what nature
had intended. His broad shoulders were increased in size by the padded
cutaway coat, until they seemed out of proportion. His collar was an inch
too high, and he was evidently wretched in it. Also he had the look in his
eyes of a man whose boots are so tight that he wishes to die. His fancy
waistcoat and maroon necktie must have been forced upon him by a ruthless
salesman who would stop at no crime in the way of trade, and the
consciousness of these atrocities and the largeness of his scarf-pin had
reduced the poor fellow to the depths of gloom. In one hand he held a pair
of yellowish kid gloves which hung limp and feeble, like the dead bodies
of small animals, and on the floor near his feet, as if drawing attention
to the brilliance of his patent-leather shoes, was the latest extravagance
in silk hats.

"My spoilt statue!" Angela thought. "I believe he is as sorry for himself
as I am for him. Who knows, though? Perhaps I'm mistaken, and he's as
proud as Punch. In that case, I give him up!"

But she would not have believed any one who had told her that she, and she
alone, was the cause of the tragic change. He had wished to appear well in
her eyes, and had gone about it in the way that seemed best.




V

WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT


Walking down Fifth Avenue, after buying tickets via Washington and New
Orleans to Los Angeles, "Mrs. May" happened to see a poster advertising a
recital by a violinist she had always contrived to miss. At once she
decided to go; and as it was for that night, there was just time to hurry
back to the hotel, dine, and dress. She was lucky enough to get a box, in
which she sat hidden behind curtains, and the evening would have been a
success if the carriage ordered to take her home had not been delayed by a
slight accident. She had to wait for it, and was much later than she had
expected to be in getting back to the hotel. Theatres were over; suppers
were being eaten in the Louis Seize restaurant, into which Angela could
see as she got into the lift; and upstairs shoes had already been put
outside bedroom doors. In front of the one next her own, she saw two pairs
which made her smile a little, for, though she could not be certain, she
fancied that she recognized them. One pair was stout, unfashionable, made
for country wear; the other looked several sizes smaller, glittered with
the uncompromising newness of patent leather, and was ultra "smart" in
shape.

"Poor statue!" she said to herself. "If they're his, how dreadfully the
new ones must have hurt him!"

Then she went into her own room, where Kate presently came to undress her
with affectionate if inexperienced hands.

Angela was still excited by all the events of the day, her first in her
own country since childhood, and fancied that she would not be able to
sleep. But soon she forgot everything and lay dead to the world, very
still, very white in the light that stole through the window, very
beautiful, drowned in the waves of her hair. Then, at last, she began to
dream of Italy; that she was there; that she had never come away; and that
there was no escape. She moaned faintly in her sleep, and roused herself
enough to know that she was dreaming; tried to wake and succeeded,
breathing hard after her fight to conquer the dream.

"It's not true!" she told herself, pressing her face caressingly against
the pillow because it was an American pillow, not an Italian one in the
Palazzo di Sereno, and because it made her feel safe.

So she lay for a minute or two, comforting herself with the thought that
all bad and frightening things were left behind in the past, with a door,
double-locked by a golden key, shut forever between it and her. Nothing
disagreeable could happen now. And she was falling asleep once more, when
a slight noise made her heart jump. Then she and her heart both kept very
still, for it seemed that the noise was in the room, not far from her bed.

It came again, and Angela realized that it was at one of the two windows,
both of which were open.

At her request, Kate had pulled the dark blinds halfway up, and Angela
would have laughed at the suggestion that a thief could creep into a room
on the twelfth story. Nevertheless, the night glow of the great city
silhouetted the figure of a man black against the shining of the
half-raised window-panes. It was kneeling on the wide stone sill outside,
and slowly, with infinite caution, was pushing the heavy window-sash up
higher, so that it might be possible to crawl underneath and slip into the
room.

As she stared, incredulous at first, then driven to believe, Angela
guessed how the seeming miracle had been performed. The man had crept
along the cornice which belted the wall, on a level a few feet lower than
the line of the window-sills. She remembered noticing this as one suddenly
recalls some forgotten detail in a photograph. A clever thief might make
the perilous passage, helping himself along by one window-sill after
another until he reached the one he wanted.

Angela turned sick, her first thought being of the immense drop from her
window to the ground. "If he should fall!" were the words that sprang to
her lips. Then she remembered that it would be better for her if he should
fall. He meant to rob and perhaps to murder her. She ought to wish that he
might slip. But she seemed to hear a crash, to see a sight of horror, and
could not make the wish.

She lay motionless, her thoughts confused by the knocking of her heart. If
she jumped out of bed and ran across the room to the telephone, the man
could see her. Then, knowing that she was awake, and caution on his part
unnecessary, he would fling up the window, jump in, and choke her into
silence.

"What can I do?" she asked herself. In two or three minutes more the slow,
stealthy lifting of the window-sash would be finished, and the thief
would be in the room.

Her rings, and her gold bag with a good deal of money in it, lay on the
dressing-table. If only he would be satisfied with these, she might lie
still and let him act; but her watch was under the pillow, and her pearls
were round her throat. The pearls were worth far more than the bag, and
the black shadow out there must know that she had many things worth
taking, or it would not be at her window now.

"What can I do?"

Suddenly she thought of a thing she could do; and without stopping to ask
whether there were something else better, she leaned out of bed and
knocked on the door between her room and the next. The door was fastened,
but, rapping with one hand, with the other she slipped back the bolt.
"Quick--quick--help!" she called. "A thief is getting in at my window."

There was a faint click, the switching on of electric light, the swift
pushing back of a bolt, and the door flew open. The shoes she had seen in
the hall had told her the truth. It was the man she expected who stood for
the fifth part of a second in the doorway of her darkened room, then,
lithe and noiseless as an Indian, made for the window. The thief was taken
completely by surprise. When Angela suddenly cried out, he had been in the
act of letting himself down to the floor, by slipping under the
window-sash, raised just high enough for him to squeeze through. He had
half turned on the wide ledge, so as to get his legs through first and
land on his knees; therefore, he was seized at a disadvantage. The most
agile gymnast could not have pulled himself back from under the
window-frame, balanced his body steadily again on the stone ledge outside,
and have begun to crawl away toward safety, all in those few seconds
before the cry and its answer. He did his snaky, practised best, but it
was not quite good enough. The man from the next room was too quick for
him, and he was caught like a rat in a trap.

Angela sat up in bed, watching. The thing did not seem real at all. It was
but a scene in a play; the black figure, dragged along the floor like a
parcel, then jerked to its feet to have both arms pinioned behind its
back; and in a brief moment, with scarce a sound. The light from the next
room let her see the two men clearly: the tall one in pajamas, as he must
have sprung out of bed at her call: the little one in black, with a mask
of crape or some thin material over the upper part of his face. Now, in
the silent struggle, the mask had become disarranged, to show a small,
light, pointed moustache. She recognized it, and knew in an instant why
she had been thought worth robbing. This was the creature who had tried to
pick up her gold bag; he had seen her rings, and perhaps had spied the
pearls.

"Take care!" she gasped a warning. "He may have a revolver!" As she spoke,
she sank back on the pillows, feeling suddenly limp and powerless, as she
lay drowned in the long waves of hair that flowed round her like
moonlight.

"The little sneak won't get to draw it if he has," said the tall man, in a
tone so quiet that Angela was struck with surprise. It seemed wonderful
that one who had just fought as he had could have kept control of breath
and head. His voice did not even sound excited, though here was
trembling. "Don't be scared," he went on. "The mean galoot! A prairie-dog
could tear him to pieces."

"I'm not frightened--now," she answered. "Oh, thank you for coming. You've
saved my life. Can't I help? I might go to the telephone and call----"

"No. Do nothing of the sort," her neighbour commanded. "There must be no
ructions in your room. I'm going to take this thing to my quarters. The
story'll be, he was getting into my window when I waked up and nabbed
him."

"Oh!" exclaimed Angela, roused to understanding and appreciation. "For me,
that would be good--but for you----"

"For me, it's all right, too. And you don't come on in this act, lady."

"He'll tell," she said.

"I guess not. Not unless he's in a hurry to see what it's like down where
he goes next. If he so much as peeps while I'm in reach, I'll shake him
till his spine sticks out of his head like a telegraph-pole. Or if he
waits till he thinks I can't get at him, I'll scatter him over the
landscape with my gun, if I fire across a court-room. He sees I'm the kind
of man to keep my word." These threats were uttered in the same quiet
voice, and the speaker went on in a different tone, "I'll tell you what
you _can_ do, lady, if you don't mind. I hate to trouble you; but maybe
'twould be best for me not to try it with one hand, and him in the other.
If you'd slip into my room and push up the window nearest this way a few
inches higher, it would bear me out better when I say he came through
there."

Angela sat up again, and reached out for her white silk dressing-gown,
which lay across the foot of the bed. Wrapping it hastily round her, she
ran into her neighbour's room. As she flashed by him, where he stood
holding his captive, he thought more and more of his angel vision with the
moonlight hair, and it seemed a strange, almost miraculous coincidence
that he should behold it in real life, after describing his dreams to
Carmen Gaylor.

"The nearest window," Angela repeated, respecting the man's shrewdness and
presence of mind. The nearest window was the one to open, because the
thief had come crawling along in that direction on the cornice, and soon
it would be found out which room he had occupied, since he must be staying
in the hotel.

She pushed up the heavy sash, already raised some inches, and turning, saw
that the silent, sulky prisoner had been dragged in by her champion.

"Thank you, lady," said the latter, briskly. "Now, you just go back to
sleep and forget this--cut it out. The rest's my business."

"But--how can I let you have all this trouble on your shoulders?"
stammered Angela. "You'll have to bear witness against him. There'll be a
trial or something. You may be delayed, kept from doing things you want to
do----"

"You can sure bet there's nothing on God's earth I want to do so much as
keep a lady out of this business," her neighbour assured her. "Now go back
to your room, please, and lock your door."

Their eyes met, and Angela felt herself thrill with admiration of this new
type which had set her wondering. The forest creature turned into a man,
was a man indeed!

"Good night, then," she said. "I can't thank you enough--for everything."

She flitted away, her small bare feet showing white and pink under the
lace of night-dress and dressing-gown. She locked her door obediently, as
she had been told, but she did not go back to bed, or try to forget. There
was a big easy chair not far from the door she had just closed, and she
subsided into it, limply, realizing that she had gone through a strenuous
experience. Huddled there, a minute later she heard her neighbour's voice
speaking through the telephone, and was consumed with curiosity as to how
he was keeping the wriggling prisoner quiet.

"He must have contrived to tie the wretch somehow," she told herself. "Or
perhaps he's strong enough to hold him with one hand. He's the sort of man
who would always think of an expedient and know how to carry it out."

It seemed dreamlike, that such a scene as her imagination, pictured was
really passing in the next room, where all was so quiet save for the calm
voice talking at the telephone, and Angela could not help listening
anxiously, hoping to catch a few words.

After the first murmur at the telephone, through the thick mahogany door,
there fell a silence more exciting to the listener than the indistinct
sounds had been. Then suddenly there was a stirring, and the mumble of
several heavy, hushed voices. After that, dead silence again, which
remained unbroken. Evidently the police had been sent for; had come; had
listened to the story of the attempted theft as told by the thief's
captor. Angela was sure his version had not been contradicted, or she
would certainly have heard a shot. The forest creature would have kept his
word! But he had not been tempted; and the thief had been carried away.
Angela wondered whether her neighbour had gone too--or whether he remained
in the next room, taking his own advice to her, and "trying to forget."
She would not be surprised if he were able to sleep quite calmly.




VI

WHEN THE TABLES WERE TURNED


Next morning Angela said nothing to Kate of what had happened in the
night. Her thoughts were full of the affair, but since the true version
was to be suppressed, it would be better to have no confidant. She asked,
however, to see a morning paper, and when it came was disappointed to find
no paragraph concerning the thief at the Hotel Valmont. She did not know
anything about the making of newspapers, but took it for granted that the
story had been too late for press, and became very eager to meet her
neighbour, that she might hear all at first hand from him.

She passed him hurriedly the day before, her head bent, because she was
afraid he meant to speak, and she would have to snub him. But now the
tables were turned. She dressed and went down early, making an excuse to
glance over a quantity of magazines and papers in the big hall, hoping
that he might appear. But he did not. It was almost, she told herself, as
if he were punishing her for avoiding him yesterday, by paying her back in
her own coin. Not that she believed he was really doing so. Yet it was
extremely aggravating that he should keep out of the way. He ought to have
understood that she would want to know what happened after the first
chapter of the story was brought to a close by the shutting of the door.

Because she was waiting for him (whether she acknowledged this or not) and
because he did not come, Angela thought of the man every moment, without
being able to put him out of her mind. He had shown such astonishing tact
as well as pluck last night, and was so good-looking, that his very lack
of cultivation made him more interesting as a study. She would have liked
to ask the hotel people about him; whence he came and what was his name;
but, of course, she did nothing of the sort. All she did was to make
various pretexts for lingering in the hall till nearly luncheon time; and
then the arrival of evening papers partly explained to her mind the
mystery of the man's absence. Also they made her a present of his name,
and a few other personal items.

"Nick Hilliard of California Makes Hotel Thief Feel Small," was the
heading of a conspicuous half-column which caught her eye.

The said thief, it seemed, was known to friends and enemies as "Officer
Dutchy." He had "worked" with success in Chicago and the Middle West, but
was a comparative stranger in New York. He "claimed" to have been an
officer in the German army, but probably lied, though he had evidently
been a soldier at one time. He had numerous aliases, and spoke with a
German accent. His name appeared on the register of the Valmont as Count
von Osthaven, and he admitted an attempt to enter the room occupied by Mr.
Hilliard, having reached it by a daring passage along a stone cornice,
from his own window, four rooms to the left, on the twelfth storey.

The case against "Officer Dutchy" would be an interesting one, as his
previous career was--according to the reporter--full of "good stories."
Mr. Hilliard was hoping, however, that it might be hurried on and off,
taking up as little time as possible, as he had use for every moment other
than hanging about a court-room giving evidence. Born in New York, he had
gone West while a boy, and had never since been in the East till a day or
two ago, when he had arrived from the neighbourhood of Bakersfield,
California, with the avowed intention of enjoying himself. Naturally he
did not want to have his enjoyment curtailed by business.

Angela felt guilty. It was her fault that the poor young man's holiday was
spoiled. She ought not to have let him take her burdens on his shoulders;
but it was too late to repent now. She could not come forward and tell the
real story, for that would do him harm, since it would differ from his
version. She could atone only by showing her gratitude in some way.
Because he came from California, she longed to show how friendly and kind
she could be to a man of her father's country--a man worthy of that
country and its traditions she began to think.

She lunched in a quiet corner of the restaurant; but Mr. Nickson Hilliard
of California did not show himself, and at last Angela went up to her own
rooms disappointed. Hardly had she closed the door, however, when a knock
sent her flying to open it again. A bellboy had brought a note, and she
sprang to the conclusion that it must be from Mr. Hilliard. He had found
out her name, and had written to tell what had happened behind the closed
door--the loose end of the story which the newspapers had not got, never
would get, from any one concerned. But the bright pink of excitement and
interest which had sprung to her face died away, as she opened the
envelope and glanced down the first page of the letter, which was headed,
"Doctor Beal's Nursing Home." She read:

   Madam:

   I am requested by Mr. Henry Morehouse of San Francisco to express
   his regret at not being able to meet your ship and offer his
   services as he hoped to do, at the request of his elder brother,
   Mr. James Morehouse, of the Fidelity Trust Bank, San Francisco. Mr.
   H. Morehouse was coming East on law business, when his brother
   suggested that he make himself useful to you, and he was looking
   forward to doing so, having known the late Mr. Franklin Merriam. On
   starting, however, Mr. Morehouse was far from well, and found
   himself so much worse on reaching New York, that he was obliged to
   consult a doctor. The result was an immediate operation of
   appendicitis. This was performed successfully yesterday and Mr.
   Morehouse feels strong enough to express (through me) his regret,
   wishing to explain why he failed, in case his brother may have let
   you know that he intended to meet you.

   Yours faithfully,

   N. Millar

   (Nurse in Doctor Beal's Private Hospital).

Mr. James Morehouse (in whose bank there were funds for "Mrs. May") had
not informed her of his brother's intentions, and though she was sorry to
hear of the poor man's sufferings, she could not regret his failure to
meet her at the ship. She did not wish to be helped, nor told how to see
things, nor be personally conducted to California. She enjoyed being free,
and vague, able to stop as long or as short a time as she liked on the
way. She wanted to see only places which she _wanted_ to see, not places
which she ought to want to see; for there was sure to be a difference.

       *       *       *       *       *

Nevertheless, she wrote a gracious answer to the letter, and ordered
flowers sent to Doctor Beal's Nursing Home, for Mr. Henry Morehouse. Then
she proceeded to forget him, unconscious of the direct influence his
illness was to have upon her future. She thought far more about Mr.
Nickson Hilliard, whom she had avoided yesterday, and who seemed to avoid
her to-day. The fact that the letter which had brought colour to her face
was from a strange, unwanted Mr. Morehouse, vexed the Princess
unreasonably with Nickson Hilliard, who ought to have written, if he could
not call, to tell his story; and when she heard nothing from him, saw
nothing of him, it was in resentment that she left New York next morning.
Though it was entirely subconscious, the real thought in her mind was:

"Since he didn't choose to take the chance when he had it, now he shan't
have it at all!"

For a woman of twenty-three is very young. It is annoying to be cut off in
the midst of an adventure, by the hero of the adventure, when you have
flattered yourself that the poor fellow was yearning to know you. If
Angela was unjust to Hilliard she was not an isolated instance; for all
women are unjust to all men, especially to those in whom they are
beginning to take an interest. Angela did not know that she was interested
in Nickson Hilliard, and would have laughed if any one had suggested the
idea, from a personal point of view; but in her social reign as the
Princess di Sereno, she had been a good deal spoiled--by every one except
the Prince. Vaguely, and like a petted child, she had taken it for granted
that all men were glad to be "nice" to her, and she thought the "forest
creature" was showing himself a backwoods creature--rude and
unenlightened.

Angela loved the sea, and chose to travel on it whenever she could. The
trip from New York to New Orleans was even more interesting than she had
expected from tales of her father's, for the ship steamed along the coast,
in blue and golden weather, turning into the Gulf of Mexico after rounding
the long point of Florida. Cutting the silk woof of azure, day by day, a
great longing to be happy knocked at Angela's heart, like something
unjustly imprisoned, demanding to be let out. She had never felt it so
strongly before. It must be, she thought, the tonic of the air, which made
her conscious of youth and life, eager to have things happen, and be in
the midst of them. But Kate was a comfort, almost a friend. And Timmy the
cat was a priceless treasure.

No town in America, perhaps, could have contrasted more sharply with New
York than New Orleans. Angela felt this, even as the ship moved slowly
along the great canal and slipped into the dark, turbid gold of the
Mississippi River. The drowsy landscape on either side was Southern
landscape, and among live-oaks draped with mourning flags of moss, and
magnolia-trees gemmed with buds, there were planters' houses which seemed
all roof and balcony. Buzzards flew up suddenly, out of rice-fields, as
the ship rounded a curve--creatures big and long-legged as the storks of
Holland and Algeria. The wharf, when the ship docked at last, was filled
with bales of cotton, and it was as if all the negroes in America must
have come down to meet the boat. She might have been walking into an old
story of Cable's, in the days "befoh the wah."

Her idea had been to travel on to the West next day, but New Orleans held
her. She had left the Old World eagerly for the New; but this bit of the
Old, in the midst of the New, made her feel as if she had stumbled into an
ancient Spanish court, in the middle of a modern skyscraper. The contrast
was sharp as the impress of an old seal in new wax, and Angela loved it.
She liked her hotel, too, and said but half-heartedly each morning,
"To-morrow I'll go on." With Kate for duenna, she wandered through streets
which, though they had historic French names, reminded her more of Spain
than of France, with their rows of balconies and glimpses of flowery
patios paved with mossy stones, or cracked but still beautiful tiles. She
made friends with an elderly French shopkeeper of the Vieux Carré, who
looked as if carved out of ivory and yellowed with age. His business was
the selling of curiosities; antique furniture brought in sailing ships
from France when New Orleans was in the making; quaintly set jewels worn
by famous beauties of the great old days; brocades and velvets which had
been their ball dresses; books which had Andrew Jackson's name on yellow
fly-leaves; weird souvenirs from the haunted house where terrible Madame
Lalaurie tortured slaves to death; fetishes which had belonged to Marie
Laveau, the Voodoo Queen; sticks and stones of the varnished house where
Louis Philippe lived, and letters written by Nicholas Girod, who plotted
to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena and spirit him across the sea to New
Orleans. The selling of these things, or rather the collecting of them,
was the pleasure as well as the business of Monsieur Bienvenu, and he had
stored in his mind as many legends of the old town as he had stored
treasures in his low-browed, musky-smelling shop. Angela spent her
mornings listening to his tales of slave-days, and always she bought
something before she bade him _au revoir_, in the Parisian French which
enchanted the old man.

"You light up my place, madame," he said; and insisted, with graceful
gestures, that she should not pay for her collection of old miniatures,
necklaces, gilded crystal bottles, illuminated books and ivory crucifixes,
until the day fixed for her departure.

"Once you pay, madame, you may not come again," he smiled. "I am
superstitious. I will not take your money till the last moment."

On the third day, however, Angela decided that she must go. Her father's
country called, with a voice she could hear above the music of the
Southern town, the laughter of the pretty French girls and the chatter of
black and brown babies who babbled a language which was neither French,
Spanish, nor English, but a mixture of all. She bought more things of
Monsieur Bienvenu, and also in other curiosity shops which she dared not
mention to him, since his one failing was a bitter jealousy of rivals.

"Where is my gold bag, Kate? Have you got it?" she asked, when the moment
came to pay a hundred dollars for two or three snuff-boxes, picked up in a
place she had not visited until that day.

"No, ma'am, you had it on yer arm when I noticed last," said Kate, looking
startled. "Fur all the saints, I hope ye haven't lost it!"

Angela, too, began to look anxious. Not only was her bag valuable--worth
seven or eight hundred dollars--but all her money was in it, and a
check-book she had brought out that morning, to pay Monsieur Bienvenu the
rather large sum she owed him. Still, she was not greatly distressed. She
had lost that gold bag so many times, had dropped it from her lap when she
got up, left it in motor-cars, or lying on the floor in friends' houses,
and always it had come back to her! She cheered herself, therefore by
saying that to-day would be no exception.

"Let me think, where were we last, Kate?" she wondered. "The shop where I
bought the lilac and silver stole, wasn't it?"

"Yes, ma'am it was. And indade, if ye'll not mind my sayin' so, I begged
ye not to go in there, the place looked so disrespectable, as if there
might be measles or 'most anything, and the man himself come poppin' out
to entice ye in, like the spider with the fly."

"We must go back at once and see if I left the bag after paying for the
stole," said Angela. And, explaining to the late owner of the snuff-boxes,
she hurried out with Kate, leaving her parcel to be called for.

Little Mr. Isaac Cohensohn, of the brocade shop, made a search, but could
not find the missing trinket. Unfortunately, a number of people had been
in since the lady left, strangers to him. If madam was sure she had gone
out of the shop without the bag, why, somebody must have taken it since
then. The question was, who? But she must apply to the police.

"If only I hadn't stuffed in that check-book!" Angela said to Kate.
"Perhaps they would have cashed a check in the hotel. Anyhow, Monsieur
Bienvenu would have taken one for what I owe him. Now I'm in the most
horrid scrape! I don't know how I'm going to get out of it."

They walked back toward the shop of the snuff-boxes gloomily discussing
the situation, which was complicated by the fact that, grown cautious
since the attempted burglary at the Valmont, Angela had left her most
valuable jewellery in a bank at New York. It was to be sent on, insured,
only when she finished her travelling, and settled down.

"I'll have to call the police, I suppose," she said. "Though it's sure to
do no good. I shall never see my bag again! I can telegraph to have the
checks stopped at the San Francisco bank; but I had nearly five hundred
dollars in the purse. What shall I do about my hotel bill and everything?
And my railway tickets? We'll have to stay till I can get money."

Suddenly, because it seemed impossible, she wanted passionately to start
at once.

Always she had hated postponing things.

"Somehow, I _will_ go!" she said to herself. "I don't know how--but I
will." And she walked on with Kate, back to the hotel, remembering how she
had told the head clerk that this was her last day--she was giving up the
rooms to-morrow. And the hotel was crammed, because there was a Convention
of some sort. It might be that her suite was already let for the next
day.

She went to the desk, asking abruptly, "If I find that I need to stop
longer, are my rooms free for to-morrow?"

"Unfortunately, we've just let them--not as a suite, but separately," said
the young man. "This is a big week for the Crescent City, you know, and
we've got people sleeping in bathrooms."

"What shall I do?" Angela exclaimed, trouble breaking down reserve. "All
my money and a check-book I had in my gold bag have been stolen. I'll have
to telegraph my bank." And she had visions of being deposited in a
bathroom, with all her luggage and Kate, and Tim the cat.

"Well, that's a shame," the clerk sympathized. "I'll tell you what I can
do. A gentleman came in about an hour ago; said he was looking for a
friend; glanced over the register, and must have found the name, because
he's going to stay. He's got to sleep in the laundry to-night, but he's
among those I've allotted to your suite to-morrow. When he hears a lady
wants to keep her room, he's sure to wait for it."

"I don't like to ask a favour of a stranger," Angela hesitated.

"American men don't call things like that favours, when there's a lady in
the case," replied the clerk. "It wouldn't do for _you_ to be in the
laundry."

It was rather unthinkable; so when the young man added that the newcomer
might be in at any minute for luncheon, Angela flitted to her own
quarters, which looked more than ever attractive now that they might be
snapped away from her. She descended again soon, hoping to hear her fate;
and there, by the desk, stood Mr. Nickson Hilliard.

His brown face reddened at sight of Mrs. May, but he did not show
surprise. Seeing that she intended to recognize him, his eyes brightened,
and Angela felt that she, too, was blushing a little. She was vexed with
him still, but it would have been stupid as well as ungrateful to show her
annoyance except by being elaborately polite. After all, she owed him
gratitude, which she had wished for a chance to pay.

She put out her hand, and he radiated joy as he took it. Happiness was
becoming to Nick. An all too cordial grip he gave, then loosened his grasp
in a fright; "I hope I haven't hurt you!" he exclaimed, horrified.

Angela laughed. "Only a tiny bit; and that's better than a fishy
handshake. Luckily, I left my sharpest rings in New York. And, oh, the
gold bag you saved is gone forever! I've just had it stolen."

"That's too bad," he remarked. But he did not look cast down. "I'll
rummage New Orleans for it, if you give me leave to have a try," he
volunteered.

"Thank you," she said. "But I shall have to tell the police, I suppose.
Not that there's much hope."

"You wouldn't let me set the ball rolling, would you?" he asked, as if he
were begging a favour instead of wishing to do one. "I mean go to the
police for you, and all that?"

"How kind you are!" exclaimed Angela. "But--no, indeed, I won't spoil your
visit to New Orleans as I did your visit to New York."

Nick looked astounded. "What makes you think you spoiled my visit to New
York?"

Here was Angela's chance for a gentle reproach, and she could not resist
the temptation of administering it, wrapped in sugar.

"I don't _think_. I know. And it distressed me very much," she said,
sweetly. "I read in the papers that you hadn't been in New York since you
were a boy; that you were there to 'enjoy yourself.' And all your time was
taken up with the bother that ought to have been mine! You were too busy
even to let me hear what happened that night, after----" Suddenly she was
sorry that she had begun. It was silly and undignified to reproach him.

His face grew scarlet, as if he were a scolded schoolboy.

"Too busy!" he echoed. "Why, you didn't think _that_, did you? You
couldn't!"

"What was I to think?" asked Angela, lightly. "But really, what I thought
isn't worth talking about."

"It may not be to you, but it is to me, if you don't mind," he persisted.
"I--I made sure you'd know why I didn't--send you any word or--or
anything. But if you didn't see it the right way, I've got to tell you
now. It was because--of course, it was because--I just didn't dare butt
in. I was afraid you'd feel, if I had the cheek to write a note, or follow
up and speak to you in the hotel, that I was--kind of takin' advantage of
what was an accident--my luck in gettin' a chance to do a little thing for
you. A mighty small thing; 'twouldn't have been visible except in a
high-powered microscope, and only then if you looked hard for it. So I
said to myself, 'Twas enough luck to have had that chance.' I'd be a
yellow dog to presume on it."

Instantly Angela realized that it was her vanity which had been hurt by
his seeming negligence, and that it was stroked the right way by this
embarrassed explanation. She was ashamed of herself for drawing it out,
yet she was pleased; because she had been really hurt. Now that she need
not puzzle over the man's motives, she would perhaps cease to think of
him. But she must be kind, just for a minute or two--to make up for
putting him in the confessional, and to prove the gratitude she wished to
show.

"You must be a very modest person, if you didn't understand that I longed
to hear--_lots_ of things you wouldn't let the newspapers get hold of,"
she smiled. "Of course, it was interesting to read about that wretched
man--Dutchy, or whatever they called him. And as he seems to have stolen
from heaps of people, I suppose it's well for the world that he'll be shut
up in prison--although I can't bear the thought of prison for any one. It
stifles me. There ought to be some other kind of punishment. But I _did_
want to know what happened in your room after----"

"Nothing much happened," said Nick. "The little beast was all in. I'd kind
of got on his nerves, and he knew I'd dig a hole in the ground with him if
he so much as peeped. I just rounded him up, and then the police came and
played out the rest of the hand. As for you spoilin' my visit to New York,
why ma'am, you _made_ it. I had the time of my life."

Angela laughed, because he called her "ma'am" (which was even funnier than
"lady," from the hero who had saved her life), and because all his
expressions struck her as extremely "quaint."

"It was a very short time of your life then. I should have thought you'd
want to stay weeks in New York, as you hadn't been there for so long--and
you'd travelled so far. You see, I saw in the paper that you'd come from
California. And that interested me, because my--because dear friends of
mine have told me so much about California." She did not add that she was
on her way there, but, of course, he might suspect, meeting her in New
Orleans, if he were curious concerning her movements.

"I did mean to stay some time when I went East," he admitted, "but--well,
perhaps I was homesick. Anyhow, I felt as if I'd got a hurry call to go
home."

"What an odd coincidence, our meeting here!" Angela spoke out her thought.

"Ye-es," assented Nick. "I reckon it does seem that way." He was
interested in the pattern of the carpet. "If you won't think it a liberty,
now I _am_ here," he began again, "I'll be mighty glad to try and find
your bag. If you'll tell me just how and where you lost it----"

Angela shook her head. "You're not to spend your time fussing with the
police, as you did in New York."

"But I'd like it better than anything," he said. "I didn't come to New
Orleans to see the sights, anyhow. I'll feel down and out if you won't let
me help. 'Twill seem as if I'd managed wrong in New York."

"Oh, if you're going to feel like _that_!" And forthwith Angela told him
the story of her loss.

"All your money and a check-book full of blank checks!" he echoed.

"Yes. I've wired already to have the checks stopped for the bank's sake.
But it's a bore. And I was fond of that bag. Besides, I had about five
hundred dollars in my purse. Now I shall have to wait here till I can get
more."

"You wanted to go?" he asked.

"Yes--to-morrow. However, that doesn't matter."

"It does, if you wanted to. But, see here, ma'am, I've thought of
something."

"My name is Mrs. May," said Angela, smiling.

"I know--I mean, are you willing I should call you it, just as if I was
really acquainted with you?"

"Of course. Why not?"

"Well, you see," he explained. "What I don't know about society and the
right way to act with ladies could be put in a book bigger than the Bible.
And I wouldn't offend you, for--for a good deal."

"I feel certain you'd know the 'right way to act,' by instinct," Angela
assured him. "You were splendid to me that night in New York. Very few men
would have known how to do what you did."

"Thank you a thousand times for saying that, though I don't deserve one
word," Nick burst out, flushing again, and hoping she did not see, because
he had a trying task before him. "But my idea is this. Couldn't you let me
lend the money you need, and go on when you like, instead of waiting? You
could send it back, any old way--check or anything. And I wouldn't care a
hang--I wouldn't care a red cent--when."

"Oh, I couldn't----" Angela began, but the look on his face stopped her.
It was so strong a mixture of disappointment and chagrin, as to make him
instantly pathetic in her eyes. She had just said that he was a man whose
instinct would always be right, and she had meant it sincerely. She knew,
if she knew anything about men, that here was one of Nature's gentlemen.
He had proved that already; and--it was a shame to hurt his feelings
after all he had done for her.

"I beg your pardon if I've said the wrong thing. I meant no harm," he
apologized warmly. "But I get left-handed and tongue-tied, I guess, when
it comes to being civilized--where there's a lady in the case. It must
have been I said it the wrong way, for, I _do_ know the thing itself would
be right. You want to go. You've lost your money. And I expect your bank
wouldn't send it on a telegram. They mostly won't. That means waiting
days, perhaps. So I thought----"

"It would mean waiting," she broke into his pause. "My bank is a long way
off. You're very kind, and I _will_ borrow the money, if it won't
inconvenience you, on condition that--you let me give you security."

"That would hurt my feelings badly," said he; "but I'd rather you'd do it
than not take the money, because your convenience is a heap more important
than my feelings."

"If I go I can get money in a few days, and wire it back to you here,"
Angela reflected aloud, at a loss how to treat the situation when it
became a question of hurting Mr. Hilliard's feelings.

Nick's face fell. "I--unless you give me your orders--I don't want to stay
here very long," said he. "I don't care when I get the money back."

"Why, you've only just arrived, haven't you?"

"Ye-es. But I feel my homesickness coming on again. I shouldn't wonder if
I'll always be sort of restless, now, away from the West. It's my
country--anyhow, the country of my heart."

Angela came near saying, "So it is mine." But that might have necessitated
explanations. "Well, you must take the security, I'm afraid," she said,
"or I can't take the loan. As I told you, I left most of my things in New
York, to be sent on when I settle down. Still, there's _one_ thing, which
I couldn't pawn, or leave with hotel people. But I wouldn't mind giving it
to you. It's a diamond frame for a miniature I always carry with me. I
could take the miniature out."

Nick stared hard at the carpet again. He was afraid to let her see the
look on his face. "It's her dead husband's picture," he thought. "She must
have loved him, if she always carries his portrait around." Aloud he said,
"Very well, if you won't do my way, I'll have to do yours."

"I'll give you the address of my bank; and I must have your address,"
Angela went on. "Then, if you should change your mind and stay here----"

"I'm going to stay just long enough to get your bag," he replied.

She laughed. "That may be forever."

"I reckon it will be some hours at longest."

"You must be a wonderful detective!"

"There's more of the bulldog than the detective in me. But it will go hard
if we don't find that bag."

"Thank you again. We shall see!" she said. "Anyway, as you're to be my
banker I can tell the hotel clerk I shan't need to keep people in
bathrooms, waiting for my suite, after to-night."

"Oh, was it you?" exclaimed Nick. "The fellow was telling me a lady wanted
to stay----"

"Then it's _you_ they've stuffed into a laundry!"

"I like it," Nick assured her. "It's a mighty clean place. I wish you
could see some of the holes I've slept in--that is, I _don't_ wish so! But
it's all right. And now, just say how much money you want. Anything up to
three thousand dollars I can give you in a minute----"

"Oh, not nearly so much. A few hundreds. But I'm going to lunch now. Would
you care to lunch at the same table, and we can arrange about the loan?
Also you can tell me more of Dutchy."

"I'd like it better than anything," said Nick. "But first I've got to fix
things about your bag with the police. I'll be back, and look you up by
the time you're halfway to dessert. I remember just what that bag was
like, because--maybe you've forgotten--I picked it up in the hotel hall
when you dropped it. I can see it as plain as if it was here. 'Twas a kind
of knitted gold, like chain armour for a doll. And there was a rim all
smothered in diamonds and blue stones."

"Sapphires," said Angela.

"That's right. Well, I'll be back in twenty minutes."

It was useless to protest against his going, for he had gone before she
could speak. And instead of beginning luncheon, Angela went upstairs to
take from its diamond frame her father's miniature. On the gold back of
this frame there was an inscription: "Angela, on her eleventh birthday,
from her father. The day before she sails." And it was because of the
inscription that she could not have offered the frame to an ordinary
person as security, no matter how desperately she had wanted a loan. But
Mr. Nickson Hilliard was not an ordinary person.




VII

A POLICE MYSTERY


It was a blow to Nick to be told that there was little hope of finding the
lost bag. He had pledged himself to "see the thing through," but he had
reasons--immensely important reasons they seemed to him--for wishing to
leave New Orleans next day.

So far as was known, Cohensohn was an honest man. There was nothing
against him, and his shop could not be searched by the police. All they
could do was to get a description of the people who had called between the
times of Mrs. May's going out and coming in. But ten chances to one, like
most women, she had mislaid her bag somewhere else, or left it at home.

Nick did not like these insinuations against the sex to which an angel
deigned to belong; but he took them quietly, and instructed the police to
offer five-hundred dollars reward for the bag alone, or a thousand with
the contents intact. Then he went back and had lunch with Mrs. May, which
was, without exception, the most exquisite experience of his life. Yet he
did not know what he ate, or afterward, whether he had eaten anything at
all--unless it was some bread which, with bitter disgust at his bad
manners, he vaguely remembered crumbling on the table.

He was cheered, however, by a plan he had, and by the inscription on
Angela's miniature frame. He would have hated the thing if it had been her
husband's.

Evening came and there was no news of the missing bag. There were not even
any satisfactory clues.

When Nick heard this he thought very hard for a few minutes, and then
inquired at what time the shops closed. He was told; and consulting his
watch, realized that they would shut in less than an hour.

"What's the name of the best jewellery store in this town?" he wanted to
know.

There were several which ranked about the same, and scribbling three or
four names on his shirt-cuff, he rushed off to find the first.

"Got any gold handbags?" he asked in a low voice, as if he had something
to conceal. "Kind made of chain, with diamonds and sapphires along the
top."

He was shown the stock; saw nothing apparently which struck his fancy, and
was off like a shot in search of the next name on his list.

At this place lived a bag which, so far as he could remember, seemed the
duplicate of Mrs. May's except that the stones alternating with the
diamonds were emeralds instead of sapphires.

"Just keep that thing for twenty minutes," said he. "I'll come back to
tell you whether I'll take it or not, and what I want done to it, if I
do."

"Another gentleman was in to-day looking at that bag," said the attendant.
"If he comes before you, I must let him have it."

"What price did you make for him?" asked Nick.

"Seven hundred and seventy-five dollars," was the reply.

"Well, will you do a little gamble? Keep it till I come in, and if I take
it I'll pay eight hundred. If I don't, you can have twenty-five dollars
interest on your time."

The attendant laughed. "We don't do business that way. But I guess I can
promise to keep the bag till you come back, if you hurry."

Nick did hurry, and visited three other shops within ten minutes, though
they were at some distance from each other. He found nothing to suit him.

"I'll take that bag, if you can change the stones and put in sapphires
instead of emeralds," he announced, somewhat breathlessly, wiping his
forehead. "I know it will come dearer. But I'm willing to pay."

"When would you want it?" asked the shopman.

"To-morrow morning by ten o'clock at latest."

"Oh, impossible!"

"I don't know much about that word," said Nick. "We've cut it out of the
dictionary up my way. Offer your men what they want to do night work, and
I guess they'll name a price."

After all, even in a smart jewellery shop they do not sell a gold bag
every day; and a point was stretched to gratify the purchaser, who had a
way which made people glad to please him.

He went back to his hotel, feeling guilty but happy. "She's going to have
a gold bag, anyhow," he thought. "I don't believe she'll ever know the
difference." And Nick began to rejoice that the old bag would never be
found. It would be splendid to know that she was using a thing _he_ had
given her. If the other bag did turn up, the police would let him know.
That was arranged; and he would manage somehow.

"Only to think," he said to himself, "a year ago I might have been as wild
to do this deal as I am now, but I couldn't have run to it. This is the
first real fun I've got out of my money. Mighty good thing money
is--though I used not to know it mattered. Dollars, even if I'd a million,
could never put me in the same class with an angel. But they give me a
chance to travel with her, and that'll be something to remember."

For Nick had found the angel of his dreams, and had recognized her at
first glance that day in the hall of the Valmont. He would have known the
angel by her eyes and hair, if nothing else had answered the description;
but all the rest belonged to the same picture--the picture of his ideal,
the girl he had never expected to see in real life. And it was all the
more wonderful that her name should be Angel, or something near it. He
might not have learned that exquisite detail if she had not given him the
diamond frame to hold as security. And to be sure of his security he was
keeping it in a pocket over his heart. He knew that this was sentimental,
but he did not care a red cent! Indeed, he gloried in it. Soon all would
be over, for she was of a world different from his, and presently she
would vanish back to her own high place, wherever that might be. He could
not have defined the difference between their worlds, if he had been
called upon to do so, but he felt it intensely. Still, he meant to make
the most of every minute, and he intended to have as many minutes as he
could get. Each could be separately treasured as if it were a pearl. He
would make a jewel-case of his memory, he told himself, for he was very
sure that never would so good a thing come to him again.

When he reached the hotel it was dinner-time, and hoping that Mrs. May
might invite him to her table, as she had before, he dressed carefully,
despite his inconvenient quarters. When he was ready, however, his heart
failed him. It seemed too good to be true that his luck should hold. She
would probably be dining in her own sitting-room, or else she would have
had enough of his company earlier in the day. But no, there she was in the
restaurant, at the same table where they had lunched together; and after
all everything arranged itself very simply. He had to tell her the news of
the gold bag--his version of it; and hearing that it might be restored,
she exclaimed, "You're wonderful! I'm sure it's all through you. It will
be nice to have my dear bag again, when I go aboard the train."

It was a pleasant dinner for both, and each seemed to find out a good deal
about the other's likings and dislikings, though--perhaps purposely,
perhaps by accident--they said singularly little about their own affairs,
their past lives, or future intentions. Afterward, in her own room, Angela
laughed as she thought over the day and the queer things she had somehow
been led into doing.

"It's too quaint that I should have borrowed money of him!" she said to
herself, giggling under her breath like a schoolgirl. "Of course, on top
of that, it's nothing at all that I should invite him to lunch and dine.
And the funniest part is, it never once seemed queer at the time, or as if
I could do anything else."

At all events she had no regrets. The coincidence of Mr. Nickson
Hilliard's appearance in New Orleans, just as her hour of need was
striking, had given a bright side to what would otherwise have been a
disagreeable and sordid adventure. Certainly there was something about him
that inspired confidence. She felt that through him she might retrieve her
bag; and, if, by chance, the money were intact she could pay him what she
owed. He would then return the miniature frame, and it would not be
necessary to give her address or say where she was going! Not that he
would misuse such information. She was sure of this now, and she could not
help being pleased that he had come back into her life just for one
day--long enough to explain himself.

Next morning, at a quarter-past ten precisely, a note was brought to her
room. It began:

"Dear Madam" (Nick had not dared venture upon "Dear Mrs. May"; it had not
even occurred to him that he might), and informed her primly that the bag
had arrived. Also it inquired in stiff language whether the writer might
be permitted to place it in her hands.

Angela laughed as she read, partly with pleasure because her bag was
found, partly because the poor young man's stiffness amused her. She knew
enough about him now to understand that it was shyness and ignorance of
social customs; but earlier she might have thought she had offended him.
"Anyway, he writes a good hand," she thought. "Full of character and
strength and not a bit uneducated."

"Ask Mr. Hilliard to come to my sitting-room," she said to the bellboy.

A few minutes later Nick appeared, his manner strained in a painful
endeavour to hide anxiety.

"So you've got my bag. How splendid!" Angela exclaimed, as they shook
hands. "I'm sure I have your efforts to thank more than those of the
police."

"No, indeed," said Nick valiantly. "The police of this town are a fine set
of men."

"How did they find it?" she asked eagerly.

Nick looked grave.

"Well, it seems there's--er--a kind of secret concerned," he explained.
"The thing required is that we don't ask questions. And perhaps you'll
agree, for what you want is the bag."

Desperately obliterating all expression from his face, and hoping that his
eyes were not anxious, Nick took from his pocket a gold bag whose
diamonds, alternating with sapphires, sparkled as the sunshine struck
them.

Angela accepted it delightedly, with but a superficial glance at the bag
itself. "Why, there's something inside!" she exclaimed.

"Only money," he hurried to break the news. "Not the purse, nor the
check-book. I'm mighty sorry, but they're both gone. The police did their
best. May get them later."

Angela opened the bag. "Five hundred dollars," she said counting rapidly.
"Now, isn't that odd? I didn't think I had quite so much! How queer the
_money_ should have come back without the purse it was in, and especially
the check-book. One would think that would be of little value to a thief."

"There's no accounting for a thief's ways," said Nick solemnly. "And I
guess a lady can't always remember to a dollar or two what money she had."

"No-o," Angela admitted. "But--it looks different, somehow." She glanced
again at the outside of the bag, and Nick's heart jumped. "The _bag_ looks
different, too," she said. "Newer, and----"

"As a matter of fact I took the liberty of having it cleaned up before it
came back to your hands."

"But the stones----"

"The worst of it is they had to be put back in again," said Nick. "That
gives a different look."

"The thief had taken out the stones?"

"Somebody had, anyhow--some of them."

"And I'm not to ask questions! It's the most mysterious thing I ever
heard."

"I expect it's one of those cases where 'the least said soonest mended,'"
Nick remarked.

"But do _you_ know who took the bag, and what happened?"

"No more than you do. I--just had to make the best of a bad business. I
hope you don't think I did wrong?"

"No, indeed. That would be ungrateful. Only--it's very strange. I suppose
this _must_ be my bag, but----"

"You can take your oath of that, anyhow. And it's your money."

"More than I thought I had. And the bag looks prettier. It's as if I'd
cast my bread on the waters and it had returned--buttered. One good thing
is, I can pay you. Four hundred dollars I borrowed. Here it is."

Nick had not bargained for this transaction, and it was the last thing he
wanted.

"But--but--you're not leaving yourself enough," he objected.

"Oh, yes. I can pay for my ticket as far as my first stopping-place.
Already I've written the bank to have money to meet me there, and it will
be in time, for I shall stay in that town several days. You must take
it--really."

He could not refuse, although it meant that he would not have her address,
or an excuse for giving his. Slowly he drew the miniature frame out from
an inside pocket of his coat. "I kept it there so as to be sure it was
safe," he explained, lest the lady should think he had taken a liberty in
wearing her property close to his heart.

Then, with many more thanks from Angela, and protestations on his part,
they said good-bye. Although the newspapers had told her that Mr. Hilliard
lived near Bakersfield, California, she had no association with that part
of the State, and it seemed improbable to Angela that she should ever meet
the handsome forest creature again. As she had no home she could not, even
if it seemed best, invite him to call upon her at some future time; but
she felt a stirring of regret that her travelling adventure was
over--quite over--now.

After that she had not much time to think, because there were things to do
before she took the train. And then she was in the express, getting
settled in a stateroom, which would be hers all the way to Los Angeles.
Kate, who was to have a berth in the same car, arranged her mistress's
things, and beamed with excitement and joy. They were really going West
now--she and Timmy the cat: and going West meant getting nearer and nearer
to Oregon. Meanwhile the girl was happy, for she adored Angela.

When Kate had finished her work everything was delightfully compact in the
pretty green room, which was almost as big as Mrs. May's cabin on the
ship. A white silk dressing-gown hung from a hook. The gold-backed brushes
and crystal bottles from her fitted bag were arranged conveniently. There
were lilies of the valley in a vase.

"Where did those flowers come from?" Angela asked.

"I don't know ma'am. I found them here," said Kate. "Perhaps the railway
people supply them to the state-rooms."

Perhaps they did. But Angela suspected something different. She was
touched and pleased. _He_ must have taken some trouble in getting the
lilies placed in the right room. And it was like him not to have come
forward himself to bid her good-bye. But--suddenly the question sprang
into her head--how had he found out that she was travelling in this train?

All the afternoon she watched the Louisiana plantations, lakes, and bayous
fly by in sunshine and shadow; or she read a novel of the South as it had
been in old days. It was an interesting story and held her attention so
closely that she was late in going to dinner. When at last she went there
was only one chair left, at a table for two. Mr. Nickson Hilliard sat in
the other.




VIII

THE GOLD BAG COMEDY


If ever there was a blush of guilt, it was Nick's.

Angela lifted her eyebrows, though she smiled. It would have been
ungracious not to smile, and Angela hated to be ungracious. All the youth
in her was glad to see him again; but all that was conventional, all that
responded to her early training, disapproved of his presence.

"This is very unexpected!" she exclaimed, wondering if he would say it was
a surprise to him, almost hoping that he might say so, because she could
then seem to accept his word; which would save bother.

Nick hung his head. He jumped up when Mrs. May was shown to the table, and
did not sit down again until she was seated. Now he disappointed Angela by
making no attempt to defend himself. "Will you please forgive me?" he
begged.

This forced Angela to be stern, and she decided to spare him no pang.

"Forgive you for what?" she asked.

"For coming," he answered to the first turn of the rack.

She was coldly puzzled. "But--do you mean your being in this train? Surely
that can have nothing to do with me."

Nick was silent for a moment. The dining-car was full, and the waiters
all busy. No one had come to take Mrs. May's order. Gathering his mental
forces he resolved upon honesty as the best and only policy. "'Twould be
easy enough to say it had nothing to do with you; that I'd have been
travelling by this train to-day, anyhow," he began bravely. "The fact is,
I came on board meanin' to try and make you think so, without exactly
tellin' lies. But you've asked me a straight question, and I've just got
to answer it straight, even if you refuse to speak to me ever again. I'm
here because you're here, Mrs. May. But I promise I won't trouble you. And
maybe you won't believe me, after my tellin' you this, but it's true; I
didn't intend ever to let you see me to-night, and maybe not the whole
journey. I only wanted to be on the same train and then, supposin' you
should happen to need help any way, I'd be ready."

"But--that's rather too much self-sacrifice," said Angela, looking him
full in the face with her dark-lashed, slate-gray eyes. "I'm not alone. I
have my maid. I shan't need help."

"I guess you know I'm not making a self-sacrifice," Nick said honestly.
"I'd be gladder than glad to do anything for the first angel I ever met on
earth. But please don't be worrying, Mrs. May. This ain't any hold-up. I
won't come near you, unless you happen to need a man to look after you.
I'll fade away this minute, if----"

"Certainly not!" cried Angela. "It was your table before it was mine.
But--I don't understand yet. I think it would have been better if you'd
finished your visit to New Orleans."

"I was sure there for the same reason I'm here," Nick blurted out. "I
guess I have to tell you the whole thing now."

"You mean--you came to New Orleans because I----"

"Yes, that's right," he finished for her, when she paused, at a loss for
words. "Something made me do it. Something stronger than I am. You were a
kind of dissolving view, and I couldn't let it get out of my sight for
good. When I heard you'd gone to New Orleans by boat----"

"How did you find out?" Angela's sweet voice had a sharp edge.

"In the travel bureau of the Valmont Hotel."

"Ah! Was that quite--considerate?"

"I know how it sounds to you. But it wasn't so bad as you think. I
inquired as if from a friend of yours, a man I know out home----"

"How--how _horrid_ of you! I'd rather you didn't explain any more."
Angela's cheeks were bright pink, and she was more beautiful than Nick had
ever seen her before, except the night of the burglar, when she had been
drowned in the gold waves of her hair, the angel of his dreams. "But you
may go on about the rest," she added hastily, when he was struck into
silence, without being able to bring in the name of his one excuse, Mr.
Henry Morehouse. "I'd better know the _worst_. When you heard where I'd
gone----"

"Well, I was too late for your ship, because I had to hang on and see
Dutchy's case through, so I took the first train I could get when that
business was wound up. And in New Orleans I found you. I didn't know for
certain where you were going next, but----"

"But what?"

"I was pretty sure you were bound for California. And anyhow, wherever it
was, I made up my mind to go. Not to bother you--no more than if I was
your hired man. Just to see you through, from a distance, to know you were
all right, and--and not to lose sight of you. I--of course you can't
understand. I reckon no woman could. I don't wonder you're mad. I was dead
sure you would be. Yet I had to stand for it."

"It's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard," said Angela, working
herself up to be as angry as she ought to be. "That you should have left
New York, after being there only a few days, and--oh, it doesn't bear
thinking of! And I'd rather not believe it."

Again Nick wished to wave the name of Morehouse like a white flag of
truce, but the San Franciscan lawyer, lying far away in a New York
hospital, seemed too weak to flutter in the breeze of Mrs. May's
displeasure.

"I'd rather have jogged along without tellin' you this," he said. "But as
things worked out, it seemed as if I had to speak."

Angela was silent, busily thinking for a moment.

"Would you leave the train at the next stop, if I asked you?" she
inquired.

"No. I'd be real sorry, but I wouldn't do that, even if you asked." And
here was his chance to use Mr. Morehouse--a chance which might never come
again. "I was going to tell you, I _do_ know a man who's acquainted with
you, Mrs. May. We came East together. His name's Morehouse, and when he
was taken sick, I went to see him, and--and had a little talk--all the
nurses would let me have. I wanted him to write a note I could give you
in New Orleans, but he wasn't strong enough. He did say I could mention
his name when I told him I meant to go back West and look after you; but
somehow it never seemed the right time in New Orleans. And now, when I
began to explain how I inquired about you at the Valmont, as if it was
from Morehouse, you didn't----"

"I felt there could be no explanation I'd care to hear," Angela finished
for him. "I beg your pardon! Still I don't see why you should take Mr.
Morehouse's responsibilities on your shoulders--for my sake."

"No, you'll never see that," Nick sighed. "Only, if you could just see
your way to forgiving me, I should be mighty thankful. I promise to switch
off till you send for me. I'm in the next car to yours, if you should need
to--if there's anything I could do, between here and Los Angeles----"

"How do you know my journey ends there? Did Mr. Morehouse tell you that,
too?"

"When he and I were travelling East, he said Mrs. May had the notion to
see California; and I thought you'd be sure to begin with Los Angeles."

"You, no doubt, will go on to Bakersfield," remarked Angela coldly, making
a statement rather than putting a question.

"I suppose so, pretty soon," Nick assented, too crushed by the angel's
displeasure to be flattered because she remembered where he lived.

"Of course you will, at once," she announced relentlessly. "Meanwhile, I
hold you to your word, Mr. Hilliard. It was--wrong of you to come, and
knowing Mr. Henry Morehouse--of whom I never heard till after I
landed--doesn't make it much more--sensible. I'm sure your motives
were--most kind. But--you've made a mistake, as you must realize now, and
the only way to atone is to--to----"

"I know. Keep out of your way. And I've promised. But I _don't_ realize
that I've made a mistake, Mrs. May. There's no use sayin' I do; for, in
spite of all, if 'twas to do over again, I would. I wouldn't change
anything."

"Then you shouldn't boast of it!" exclaimed Angela. "Confession may be
good for the soul of the confessor, but it can be embarrassing for the one
confessed to. You oughtn't to have told me why you came. The only thing to
save the situation would have been to let me think it was an accident."

"You wouldn't have thought so long--unless I lied. Ought I to have lied?"

She was rather thankful that the waiter came just then with the menu, and
saved her from answering. She ordered her dinner, and the smiling negro
turned to Nick.

"I don't think I want----" he began. But Angela sternly caught his eye,
mutely commanding him to eat. When he had chosen several dishes at random,
and the waiter had gone, she reproached him again. "What would people
think if you went away in the midst of dinner? There's a man opposite
staring at us now! You're not as tactful as you were the night of the
burglar. Then, you did just the right thing, cleverly and bravely. For
that I can forgive you a good deal--but not everything. Now you make one
blunder after another."

"That night in New York you wanted me. This time you don't. I guess that's
what makes the difference in the quality of my gray matter," said Nick.
"I feel riddled with bullets, and they've hit me right where I live. I--I
suppose you'll never forgive me, will you? If you only half guessed how
little I meant to butt in, or be rude, or annoy you, maybe you could,
though."

"Maybe I can--by and by; for the sake of your kindness in the past."
Angela relented. "But not even for that quite yet. And not _ever_, if you
look so stricken that you make people stare."

"I _am_ stricken," Nick confessed.

"You deserve to be." She crushed him deeper into the mire. Whereupon the
soup arrived, and they began to eat, and talk politely. Nick had never
known before that a man could be wildly happy and desperately miserable at
the same time, but now he knew. And he would not have changed places with
any other man in the world. "I'm under a spell," he said to himself, "and
I wouldn't get out of it if I could."

At the same moment Angela conjectured that there must be something strange
about the air she was breathing in this New World. "It makes one want to
act queerly," she thought. "I'm sure I should have acted quite differently
about this whole affair in Europe. It's so easy to feel conventional in
places where you've always lived, and where you know everybody. Or is it
only because this man's so different from any one else? I thought I was
beginning to understand his nature, but now I see I don't. The thing is, I
was _too_ nice to him. I oughtn't to have asked him to lunch and dine in
New Orleans. That began the mischief. And it was my fault more than his."

But then, according to the man's own confession, the mischief had begun
in New York. "I wish I could make myself enjoy snubbing the extraordinary
creature," she went on, as she ate her dinner, throwing an occasional
sentence concerning the scenery, or, as a last resort, the weather, to her
chastened companion. "But it's difficult to snub a person who's saved your
life and lent you money and found your gold bag. That's why he oughtn't to
have put me in this position--because I owe him gratitude. It's really
horrid." And she began to feel sincerely that the New Type had conducted
itself unworthily.

She gave Nick a cool bow when she was ready to go, and left him plunged in
gloom, but stubbornly unrepentant. "It's a tough proposition I'm up
against," he thought, "but a man's as good as his nerve. And I'll fight
till the next spring rains sooner than let her slip away out of my life."

It was deep blue dusk when Angela went back to her stateroom, too dark to
look out of the window; yet she had lost interest in the book which she
had found absorbing earlier in the day. It seemed irrelevant somehow; and
though there was no reason why they should do so, her own affairs appeared
more insistently exciting than before. "It's the call of the West
already," she answered her own question. "I hear the voice of my father's
country."

And then her thoughts returned to Nick.

"I wonder what _he_ is doing now--whether I made him see the error of his
ways?" she asked herself, stroking Timmy, lent by Kate. And she was not
sorry for the forest creature: not sorry at all. It was stupid even to
think of him. But in her lap, a splendid plaything for the black cat, was
the gold bag. It seemed associated with Mr. Hilliard now. Odd, how
different it looked since she had got it back! Bigger, somehow, though, of
course, it was the same. There couldn't have been a mistake. Almost
mechanically she began to count the jewels set along the mouth of the bag.
Fifteen sapphires--fifteen diamonds. Why, there had been only twenty-eight
altogether! She was sure of that. She had counted them before, in
absent-minded moments. What could this mean? Suddenly an explanation of
what it might mean flashed into her head. The theory seemed too
elaborate--yet it would account for the mystery Hilliard had made of the
whole matter, and his anxiety that she should not interview the police, or
come into contact with them. And the five hundred dollars--more money than
ought to have been in the bag. She recalled now having mentioned that sum
in telling of her loss. And the forest creature had said that he "knew
exactly what her bag was like." If he had found a duplicate, and palmed it
off upon her, the absence of the check-book and the presence of the money
without the purse would be explained. But could he have found a bag,
ready-made, so like the lost one as to deceive her until now? She must
question him at once. Yet, with her finger on the bell, ready to summon
the porter, she paused. Only half an hour ago she had forbidden Mr.
Hilliard to come near her. Now she was about to send for him. This would
appear to be a triumph for the enemy. "But I'll soon show him it _isn't_ a
triumph," she thought, and pushed the electric button.

"In the car between this and the dining-car, there's a Mr. Hilliard," she
announced when the porter arrived. "Please ask him to come and speak to
Mrs. May."

"Yes, miss, I'll tell the gen'leman with pleasure," replied the elderly
negro, trotting off to cry aloud a name more or less resembling Hilliard.

Nick, not daring to hope that luck might change so soon, had drifted into
the observation car; but a man answered to the call, beckoning the porter.

"Sure you understood the name right, George?" he inquired. "My name's
Millard. What kind of a looking lady is this Mrs. May?"

The black porter, who was not George, but who had answered to the name a
thousand times, smiled a smile like a diamond tiara. "She sure is the
prettiest young lady I evah see, sah," said he. "Most ob dese wite ladies
look jest alike to me. I cyant tell one ob dere faces from de odders. But
dis one--my! I won't forget her in a month o' Sundays."

"I know who you mean now, and I guess it's Millard she inquired for," said
the gentleman of that name. "You got it a little mixed."

So a minute or two later Angela had her second surprise of the evening.
Expecting Nick, and with her first shot prepared, she saw at her stateroom
door a man as different as night from day--the man who had stared in the
dining-car. He had a dyed black moustache, like the brand of Cain, and an
air of thinking that women and other animals of the chase were made for
him to hunt.

"Mrs. May, I believe?" he began politely. "I'm Mr. Millard. I think you
sent for me. We've met somewhere before, and----"

Angela explained matters coldly, in three words; though she fancied that
no explanation was needed. Mr. Millard showed signs of seeking an excuse
to linger, but none was granted. Even Timmy was in a dangerous mood, and,
as Kate appeared, on her way back from dinner, the gentleman from the next
car retired in good order.

"You saw Mr. Hilliard, who brought my--a gold bag to the sitting-room in
New Orleans?" Angela said to Kate. "He's in the car between this and the
dining-car. Please find him, and let him know that I should like to see
him here."

Kate's quest produced Nick; and Mrs. May did not mention Mr. Millard. She
fired her shot without warning.

"This is not my gold bag."

Nick's jaw squared itself. "It is your bag," he insisted.

"Mine had twenty-eight stones. This has thirty. How is that to be
explained?"

"How should I tell?" he echoed, bold as brass. "It's a question for the
police." She had scolded him for confessing. He would not court the lash
again.

"I wonder if you _couldn't_ tell--if you would? I insist, Mr. Hilliard,
that you give me the whole truth, if you know it. And I think you must
know."

"I warned you there was a mystery," he mumbled.

"You gave me the impression that it was a police mystery. Now I believe it
was of your making. A little while ago you asked me to forgive you. Don't
you see I _never_ can, unless you tell the truth about this wretched bag?"

"A little while ago you wouldn't forgive me because I did tell the truth."

She answered like a woman. "That's _entirely_ different." And dimly Nick
realized that it would be worse than useless to ask why. Queer how a
woman seemed to want only the things you were just out of!

"You--_bought_ this bag," she stated.

"Oh, well, it's no use!" groaned Nick. "Once I thought 'twas a fake about
little George Washington; but I see now it can be harder to tell lies than
truth to some people. I can't tell one to you," the prisoner in the dock
confessed. "I did buy the bag, but when yours is found, they'll send it on
to me. Then we can change."

"It will never be found. Oh, how _could_ you?--and the five hundred
dollars!--your money. How idiotic of me--and how you must have laughed
when I paid you back the four hundred I owed--out of your own pocket."

"I never felt less like laughing in my life than I did then. Unless it's
now."

"You can't feel as distressed as you've made me feel. I still owe you the
four hundred; and another hundred besides. That makes up the five. And the
worst of all is, I can't pay you till Los Angeles. But here is the bag."

"Do you hate me so much you've got to give it back?" Nick's eyes implored
mercy from the court.

"I'm more vexed than I can tell. This is beyond everything! Please take
your bag at once."

"I swore just now it was your bag. And it is."

"Surely, it's hardly necessary for me to tell you I can't keep it?"

She held the bag out to him, and when he would have none of it, forced the
soft gold mesh into his hand. He let the thing drop, and at the instant of
its fall Kate returned, hovering uncertainly. She supposed that Mrs.
May's visitor had gone by this time, and had come to ask for a promised
book.

"Kate, there's been a mistake." Angela said. "This gold bag isn't mine
after all, though they look so much alike. Please pick it up from the
floor and give it to Mr. Hilliard."

These tactics overmastered Nick. He could not let a woman, be she maid or
mistress, grovel on the carpet in his presence. He dived for the bag, and,
pale and troubled, handed it to Kate. "It seems this has got to be mine,"
he stammered. "But I don't want it. Will you take the thing? If you won't,
it goes out of the window, sure as fate."

"Oh, ma'am, what will I do?" cried Kate. "Why, it's a rale fortune!
I--_must_ I let him throw it out the window? What all them jewels and gold
would mean to me and Tim--the difference in our lives! If I won't have the
bag some wicked tramp may find and sell it for drink."

"Do as you choose. It has ceased to be my affair," said Angela.

"Are you _sure_ you'd fling the bag away, sir, if I say no to it?" the
Irish girl implored.

"Dead sure."

"Then--oh, I _must_ take it! I can't give it up to a tramp, when 'twould
buy Tim and me a home. You must be a millionaire, sir, throwing away good
money like that."

"I've got more than I know what to do with, good or bad," said Nick,
drowned in gloom. "Thank you very much for taking it. It's real kind of
you. And it's a comfort to me the thing'll be of use to some one."

He looked at Angela, but she would not see him. And without another word
he effaced himself.

"I suppose that snuffs me out," he muttered, dolefully, returning to his
own car. Almost, he was minded to leave the train in Texas--to go on by
another; or to return to New York and do what he could to forget the
hard-hearted angel. But he did not leave the train. He went on doggedly.
"I'm hanged if I give up," was his last thought. "It's no soft snap, but
I'll make her forgive me before we're through."

"You'll not be cross with me, ma'am because I couldn't be lettin' him
throw away the beautiful bag?" Kate coaxed her mistress. "I seen he
_would_ ha' done it. There was fire in his eyes."

"Yes, he would have done it," Angela echoed. "I'm not cross with you,
though I hoped you would refuse. I'd no right to dictate when it meant
your sacrificing a lot of money--a hundred pounds at least, which would go
begging unless you accepted."

"A hundred pounds!" the girl stammered. "Oh, I didn't know the bag was
worth the half of that! Will I give it back to the gentleman?"

"It's too late. There would only be a scene. He'd refuse to take the
thing."

Kate looked relieved. "Then I'll just try and sell it in the first big
city where we're stopping ma'am," she said, with a happy sigh. "You
_tould_ me a black cat brought luck!"

Angela neither slept well nor lay awake well that night. Whenever she
closed her eyes she seemed to meet Nick Hilliard's beseeching look; and
next day, angrily pushing him and his problems out of her mind, she
devoted herself passionately to scenery. He must have taken his meals very
early or very late, or else had none at all, for not once did she see him
in the dining-car. The following day at luncheon, however, he was going
out as she came in. She bowed to him coldly, but her heart beat as if
something exciting had happened. That night she forgot to set back her
watch, and so went to dinner earlier than usual. Not far ahead, also bound
for the dining-car, was Mr. Hilliard. She disliked the large tables laid
for four; and when he could, her favourite waiter kept a place for Mrs.
May at a small table for two persons. Often she got one to herself, but
this evening, as she sat down, Mr. Millard appropriated the other chair.
Had he not been rather stout, he would have squeezed himself into place
before she could protest; but being a tight fit, inadvertently he gave her
time to think.

"This seat is engaged," she said, raising her voice to reach the ears of
Mr. Nickson Hilliard. He turned and saw invitation in her eyes. "I'm
keeping your chair," she calmly informed him--since between two evils it
is wise to choose the less.

"Thank you," said Nick, as quietly as if it had been a long engagement.

"Did that galoot annoy you?" he asked, dropping into the seat.

"No," said Angela. "But I preferred you for a neighbour."

Having explained her motives, she made it clear that conversation was not
included, and Nick, knowing that a man in disgrace should be seen and not
heard, was silent. When Mrs. May had finished a light meal, she unbent
far enough to say: "It was clever--and kind of you to understand. One
thing more! I must have your address at Bakersfield, to send the money."

Then Nick told her that he lived on a ranch a good many miles from
Bakersfield. "I call it the 'Lucky Star Ranch,'" he added.

"I'll write you from Los Angeles," said she, and became conscious that her
last words had been overheard by Mr. Millard. He had seated himself at a
table close by, and now glanced up with such an intelligent look that she
was sure he had taken in something of the situation.

When the journey through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona was over, and the
train slowed into the station at Los Angeles, she had cause to remember
this incident, for Millard was on the car steps, just in front of her. He
caught up the large dressing-bag which the porter had carried out of her
stateroom, and, looking back, said:

"It's my turn to help you a little now, Mrs. May, since your friend's
going on farther. You're English, I guess; and if you haven't got anybody
to show you around here, you must let me make myself useful."

"I would rather the porter took all my luggage, please," replied Angela,
glancing about for her black friend. But doubtless Mr. Millard had claimed
authority, and "George" was giving his services to some one else.

"Porter isn't here. You'd better let me look after you, and get a
carriage," said Millard, whose legitimate business it was to travel for a
manufacturing firm.

The train stopped, and he jumped off with Angela's dressing-bag, but only
in time to have it taken in a business-like manner by Nick, who had swung
down from his own car while the train was still in motion.

"It just occurred to me you might be giving yourself a little unnecessary
trouble," said he. "I'll see to this lady."

"I thought you were going on," stammered the commercial traveller.

"Not just yet," Nick spoke mildly, but his eyes looked dangerous, and Mr.
Millard thought best to give up the point without further argument.

"I always have to thank you for something! It's too bad!" laughed Angela,
as Nick put her and Kate into a carriage which he had secured. "Good-bye;
I suppose it's fated that I must forgive you, as we shan't see each other
again."

With this she put out her hand, half friendly, half reluctant, and as Nick
shook it eagerly, the train moved away.

Angela gave a little cry. "Now I've made you miss your train! And your
luggage!"

"I won't howl about that," said he. "I'll wire. And I can get another
train by and by--when I want it," he added under his breath. Then he let
the carriage drive away.




IX

THE LAST ACT OF THE GOLD BAG COMEDY


"May I go out, ma'am, and see what they'll be givin' me for the gold bag?"
Kate asked, when the unpacking--for a few days--was done at a Los Angeles
hotel.

This was a sore subject with Angela. She believed that she disliked the
bag; but also she disliked having it go out of her life beyond recall.
"Think of the money he spent, and the trouble he took!" something seemed
to moan in her mind. But with an impersonal air she gave Kate permission,
dismissing the past as represented by the Hilliard incident, and plunging
into the joy of arranging future motor-cars and trains--a future which was
to concern her, and Kate, and Kate's cat alone, not Mr. Hilliard.

A singularly sympathetic and apparently intelligent hotel clerk not only
advised a motor for sightseeing in the neighbourhood, but recommended one
owned and invented by a friend. It was a "clipper," he said; could do
anything but climb trees or jump brooks, and might be hired by Mrs. May,
at a reasonable price, for a day, a week, a month, a year. Angela felt
bound to say that she should like to see it; and--almost before the last
word was out of her mouth--the garage was rung up by telephone.

The car arrived with startling promptness, and if Angela had been given
time to think it might have occurred to her that there was not, perhaps,
as much competition for this new invention as the hotel clerk had implied.
The inventor, who was driver and chauffeur as well, bore a striking
resemblance to a sulky codfish, but his half-boiled eyes lighted up and
glittered (even as his car glittered with blue paint), at the prospect of
business. Other vehicles were now being produced by a firm who had bought
his patent, said he, but at present his own; appropriately named the
"Model," was the "only one running." He lifted the brilliant bonnet, and
revealed intricate things, all new and silvery and glistening like
crystallized sugar. Angela fell an easy victim. She knew nothing about the
mechanical virtues and vices of cars, though she had two at home for her
own use, and the Prince a dozen, valued only less than his aeroplanes.
Hers had been gray and dark green. She had always wanted a blue car, and
this was a lovely colour. Though she was no more vain than a pretty young
woman ought to be, she consented to an experimental run, with an undertone
of conviction that the car would become her as a background.

As she made her decision, Kate arrived, breathless with the excitement of
bargaining, to find her mistress on the curbstone.

"Oh, ma'am!" she panted. "I've _done_ it! I've got five hundred dollars in
me pocket!"

"And they've got the bag," Angela regretfully murmured.

"Yes, ma'am, they have. Unless they've sold it since. Such a fine
jewellery shop. The name an Oirish one, and I went there first, for luck.
Then I tried another place, but they offered less, and I ran back to
Barrymore's. They said 'twas a splendid bag, and they'd 'a give more, but
they haven't the same call for the article as if 'twas Paris or New York;
and they must make their profit."

"No doubt they will make it," Angela almost snapped. She felt as a certain
type of woman feels on hearing that the first man who ever proposed to her
has married some one else. And when the codfish, whose name was Sealman,
asked her where she would go for a trial spin, she said that he might take
her to the shop of Barrymore the jeweller. But that was when Kate had
disappeared into the hotel.

The automobile ran quietly, and the springs, as the codfish said, were
"grasshoppers." The motor made a pleasant purring, not much louder than
Timmy's when you scratched his head through the open roof of his basket.
It was a small car, but as Angela wanted it only to run about the
neighbouring country, keeping Los Angeles as a centre, she began to think
that she might as well engage it. After the poor codfish had given her
this run for nothing, how could she disappoint him?

Exactly what she meant to do when she stopped before the shop of Thomas
Barrymore & Company she could not have explained, even to herself. Perhaps
she had the curiosity to see how the bag would look in the window, in case
the jeweller had placed it there; and sure enough, he had displayed it,
anxious not to miss a sale. There were other gold bags, but this one--of
many adventures--was by far the most beautiful; and suddenly she knew why
she had come. She was going to buy the thing for herself. She could not
bear to let any one else own that bag.

Of course, if she had been sensible and business-like, she might have told
Kate before selling to inquire at some shop what would be a fair price;
and then she might have offered the girl that amount. Now she must pay for
her pride; and having less than half the income of the Princess di Sereno,
Mrs. May ought to have been thinking about the California land she wished
to purchase before committing useless extravagances which she could no
longer afford. Besides, if she bought back the bag, she would always be
ashamed to use it under the eyes of Kate.

She pointed it out to one of the Barrymore assistants, who said it had
just arrived from Paris, and the price was seven hundred and fifty
dollars. For her life, Angela could not have contradicted him or haggled.
Luckily, or unluckily, her money had come from San Francisco. It served
her right, she thought, to pay two hundred and fifty dollars more than if
she had dealt with Kate. She should have been ashamed even to want Mr.
Hilliard's bag, still more to buy it; and she took away her purchase in a
beautiful box, with all the joy of a normal female thing who has secured
for her own something which she ought not to have. When Angela di Sereno
had been able to afford everything, she had longed for nothing. There was
a new spice in life. And the redemption of the bag was to be a dead
secret.

"Back to the hotel, please; and I'll engage your car for the next three or
four days," said Mrs. May to Sealman, suddenly full of kindness for him
and all the world.

Nick sat in the window of a better hotel than Angela's. She had chosen
hers on the advice of a lady in the dining-car, a lovely blonde, _née_
brunette, who had once enjoyed a honeymoon in Los Angeles, and was now on
her way Nevadaward to get a divorce. Nick had been to Los Angeles before,
and knew where to go without asking advice, though the same lovely lady
would have been enchanted to give him some. Mr. Millard was also in his
hotel, and would not move to Mrs. May's (although it was cheaper), so long
as Nick remained on guard. That was one of the reasons why Nick stayed.
But there were others. His luggage he had wired for, and it would come
back.

He sat by the window, wondering whether Mrs. May would be angry if he
showed himself; or whether, on the principle that a cat may look at a
king, she would consider that he had as much right to be in Los Angeles as
she had.

Then she flashed by in the blue automobile, which was as becoming as she
had expected. Nevertheless, Nick jumped up from the chair in which he had
been lounging, and frowned. "Great guns! If there ain't that bandy-legged,
crop-eared, broken-nosed auto Sealman came to offer Mrs. Gaylor last
winter, and wanted to palm off on me!" he grumbled to himself. "How in
creation did that maverick get hold of Mrs. May? Bet there've been bribes
flyin' around somewhere."

Angela, being on the way back to her hotel from Barrymore's when Nick
caught sight of her, had returned by the time he strolled in to ask if Mr.
Sealman was staying there. Mr. Sealman was not; but the clerk admitted
acquaintance with him.

"I want to know if his car's engaged," began Nick.

Yes, the clerk happened to know that it was engaged for the next three
days, perhaps longer, to a young lady in the hotel who intended to do some
touring in the neighbourhood.

"Contract all fixed up?" asked Nick.

Everything was arranged; had just been settled; in fact, Mr. Sealman had
gone home.

Nick stood still and thought for a moment, looking as sad as if he had
earnestly desired the Model for himself, which was, of course, the
impression conveyed. As he reflected (not so much wondering what he wanted
to do next, as whether the thing he wanted to do would "work") Kate came
down, with a letter in her hand ready to post to Mr. Timothy Moriarty,
White Orchard, Oregon.

"Oh, sir!" she exclaimed, flitting up to Nick. "P'raps you don't remember
me, but I'm maid to Mrs. May, and 'twas to me you gave that beautiful bag
you said you'd throw out o' window if I didn't take it. Ye don't mind if I
sold it, do ye?"

"Of course not," Nick assured her. "I gave it to you for that."

"I thought so, sir; and I've done fine with it to-day. A gentleman named
Barrymore, who keeps a smart jewellery shop, paid me five hundred dollars.
I'm all in a flutter, sir! Just to think, it's the same as if you'd give
me the money."

"Not a bit of it," said Nick. "Some cow might have swallowed the bag by
this time if you'd let me chuck it out of the car window. Or a goat,
maybe."

"Well, thank you again a thousand times. And what with you, and my lady,
Mrs. May, I'm the happiest girl in the wurruld." And Kate tripped away to
post her letter.

"'My lady, Mrs. May,'" echoed Nick, beneath his breath. "She's _my_ lady,
too--my angel--though she doesn't know it. And nothing can change that
till doomsday."

He had hated the gold bag when it was rejected by Angela; but now he felt
differently. His heart warmed toward it. Had it not been hers, if only for
a little while? It had hung on her wrist. It had been in her hand. It had
held her lace handkerchief, which smelled like some mysterious flower of
fairyland. Now he knew what he had come to learn, there was nothing to
keep him any longer; and, walking out of the hotel, he asked the first
intelligent-looking man he met where to find Barrymore's.

"A young lady in black, in a blue auto, sir, bought the bag you must have
seen in the window," he was presently informed by the youth who had served
Angela. "A young lady with golden hair. You might almost have met her on
the way."

"I rather think I did meet her," drawled Nick. And though the bag was gone
forever, he was suddenly so happy that he could have sung for joy. He
hurried away to telegraph Henry Morehouse, at Doctor Beal's Nursing Home,
asking a favour which he was sure Morehouse would grant, because they had
grown very friendly on the journey East. Next, he called at the largest
garage in Los Angeles, and asked advice of the manager about buying a
motor-car. "You wrote me in the winter, saying you had a fine one here to
dispose of," he said. "Maybe you remember?"

Remember? Why, of course, the manager remembered Mr. Hilliard! Every one
had been talking of his Lucky Star gusher.

Nick laughed. "A right smart lot of letters wanting me to buy things came
along about that time. I hadn't got any use for an auto then. Now I have.
And I want a good one, for touring. The best there is."

"Any make you fancy?"

"I don't know much more about motors than elephants," Nick confessed. "No
use pretendin' to be an expert, but I'm going to learn the whole game from
A to Z."

"I've got a machine here now," said the man of the garage, "that might
suit you if you want something first-rate. Belongs to a millionaire who
went broke before he'd had his auto a week. Best American on the market,
and better than new. She's found herself. Come and have a look at her."
Nick went. "She" was a beauty, inside and out a pale primrose yellow.

"Almost the colour of _her_ hair," he thought.

"I must have a shuvver to overhaul the machine, until I've been put wise,"
he said, when, after some discussion, he had agreed to buy the yellow car
if it were satisfactory. "But I want to learn to drive right away. I'd
sure be on pins and needles, sittin' like a duke, in behind, with somebody
else at the helm. How long will it take me? I'm pretty quick at pickin' up
new things."

"Can you drive a horse?" the man inquired.

Nick laughed. "I can worry along some."

Few men in California knew more about horses than he.

"Well, then, you'll get the trick of steering sooner. Six or seven lessons
might do you."

"Lessons of an hour or two?"

"Well, yes. That's about it."

"Suppose I pay extra, and practise extra? If I keep at it all day and
every day, will I be warranted safe and kind after, say, four lessons? I
can have several men to teach me maybe, if I tire one out."

"But you're only one man. Keeping at it like that you'd feel a strain."

"No, I wouldn't," said Nick. "I'd have a doze or two and a sandwich or two
in between spins. No harder work than a round-up."

"All right, then. In four days like that you'll be a dandy driver, I
promise you, Mr. Hilliard," said the man of the garage.

"Fit to drive--ladies?"

"Fit to drive a queen."

"That's what I want to do," mumbled Nick under his breath.




X

WHEN ANGELA WENT SIGHTSEEING


The next five days Angela spent in seeing the country her father had
helped to create, and in breaking down in the blue motor-car at brief and
inconvenient intervals. At first they were unexpected intervals; but soon
they were taken for granted; for the more she knew of Mr. Sealman's
invention the less was Angela surprised at anything it chose to do. The
Model was a model of all the vices. It smoked like a chimney, drank like a
fish, and developed, one after another or all together, every malady to
which motor-metal is heir. The stages of the way, even to the Mission of
San Gabriel, in its sleepy old Mexican village on the fringe of Los
Angeles, were punctuated with disasters. A burst tire was a comma;
carburetor trouble a colon; nervous prostration of the sparking-plug a
period. But Mr. Sealman never lost confidence. He explained everything,
justified himself and the car; told anecdotes of his courage, and let fall
pathetic words concerning an invalid mother dependent on him and his
success.

"I'm a pioneer, I tell you," he said. "You and I are making history this
minute."

Angela would gladly have turned from so lurid an occupation to any other
pursuit; but Mr. Sealman looked as if his health were more fragile than
that of the car. When he clawed obscurely at the crystallized sugar
ornaments under the bright bonnet of the fainting Model, his air looked so
dejected, his eyes so hollow, and his smile so wan that Angela's fury
melted into pity. Passionate resolves to shed him and his blue abomination
died within her as she watched his struggles. His whole future depended,
he said, on the Model. If Mrs. May should throw him over and hire another
car, the news would fly like lightning from garage to garage of Los
Angeles; indeed, from end to end of California. He would be ruined. His
mother, who had been forbidden excitement, would, without doubt, die of
heart failure.

The heart of Angela failed also, again and yet again. She began to see
that Mr. Sealman had cast himself for the part of Old Man of the Sea, in a
travel drama of which she was heroine. She felt alone in the world. "It
will probably end in my having to buy the little blue brute and burn it,"
she thought. "But even then the codfish will probably insist on being my
butler."

These gloomy forebodings shadowed her mind one morning when the Model
broke down about half a mile from fantastic little Venice, the Coney
Island of South California. In a rage she got out and walked, past a
kaleidoscopic pattern of tiny bazaars, shooting-galleries, paper icebergs,
and cardboard mountains. She threaded her way through a good-natured crowd
of tall, tanned young Americans, pretty girls with wonderful erections of
golden hair, dark-faced Mexicans, yellow-faced Japanese, a few Hindus and
negroes. Then, by the pier, she saw an old Spanish galleon disguised as a
restaurant, and drifted in to lunch on fried sand-dabs attractively
advertised in big black letters. How old, how Spanish, and how galleon
the craft might really be, none could tell--or would. But the sand-dabs
were delicious; and from the queer window near her table--a window cut in
the ship's side--she could see the Pacific, blue in distance, green where
it tossed white foam-blossoms on a beach of gold.

"Breakdowns would be fun if I'd some one to laugh at them with me," she
thought; and her mind conjured up the image of Nick Hilliard, seating him
opposite her at the little table.

She had ordered him home and he had apparently obeyed; which seemed unkind
and poor-spirited, and altogether unlike him. Ever until now he had been
at hand to save her from all that was disagreeable. Even at Los Angeles he
had jumped off the train to circumvent Mr. Millard. His ways had been like
the ways of story-book heroes, who, by some extraordinary coincidence,
invariably appear in time to rescue the heroine from a villain, a mad
bull, a runaway horse or a burning house. The only difference was that Mr.
Hilliard could not possibly be the hero of this story, and his opportune
arrival was, on his own confession, never a coincidence. He came on
purpose; and that was bad taste. But as he had done it so often, why
couldn't he have transgressed just once again, to rescue her from Sealman?

She thought of the tall forest creature with yearnings, which interfered
with her appetite for sand-dabs. He might unobtrusively have stayed, she
thought, and put himself at her service. Not the most clinging Old Man of
the Sea could continue to cling if that square-chinned bronze statue
pointed out the wisdom of letting go. But no doubt _he_ was at home near
Bakersfield, before this--Angela seldom named Nick in her mind--otherwise
she must have run across him somewhere that first day at the City of the
Angels when she had spun gaily from park to park, the Model for once
behaving well. Almost, she had expected to see him the next morning when
the car refused to move, and she had taken a trolley car, halfway to San
Gabriel. It would have seemed appropriate, somehow, to meet him strolling
in front of the Mission, his hands in his pockets, gazing up at the
beautiful half-ruined facade, with its delicate chain-armour of gold
lichen, its tower, and its flowers like blossoming barnacles.

Angela knew now that she had felt certain of meeting Hilliard
"accidentally," in the Mission church. That while she walked beside the
elderly Spanish verger, chatting of his native Cordova, listening to tales
of Father Juniperra Serra, Father Somera, and the legend of the Indians
with the miraculous portrait of the Madonna, she had started more than
once at a footfall, fancying it that of her lost hero.

Of course, if he had ventured to show himself at any time she would have
known that it was no coincidence; and she would have lifted her eyebrows
in silent reproach, talking more earnestly to the verger, who had been
happy because she knew Cordova and all his beloved Spanish cathedrals.
Nevertheless, the bronze statue would have fitted well into the scene, and
something lacked because it was absent.

"I do think he might write from his ranch and acknowledge the money I sent
him," she told herself now, neglecting the sand-dabs to stare through the
galleon window at the floating seaweed on the tide-dark gold-green kelp,
like lost laurel-wreaths torn from the brows of drowned divinities. "I
posted the letter myself, that first day. He must have got it--if he _is_
at home."

Just then a tall, dark young man walked into the ship-restaurant, taking
off a sombrero. Angela gathered herself together, ready to administer a
gentle snub. But she might have saved herself the trouble. It was not
Nick. She could have cried with disappointment. Snubs of the past were
coming home to roost.

There was time to buy California jewels in the bazaars--tourmalines and
pearl-blisters--before the car came up, purring sweetly, and looking
innocent as a cat gorged with canary birds. Mr. Sealman was so sure that
nothing could or would go wrong ever again that Angela had no heart to
receive him coldly.

They started off for a run through bungalow-land, and the Model conducted
itself like a newly converted sinner.

"I've been thinking out a dandy plan, while I was tinkering on the auto,"
remarked Mr. Sealman in an engaging manner. "What do you say to doing a
tour of the Missions? You know, I guess, there's a chain of 'em, and the
fine thing it would be to see the lot by road! I tell you, this little
auto's going to be all right--all right. It'd be the best kind of a stunt
for a lady from Europe; and if the papers got hold of it, I bet they'd
give us a bang-up notice--a photo too, maybe, you could send your friends
on the other side."

Angela shuddered. She could hardly bear even to hear this proposal from
the codfish, for a pilgrimage to the Missions of California had been a
dream of Franklin Merriam's. He and she were to have followed the
footsteps of the Franciscan Fathers, stage by stage; and if a Mission here
or there were falling into ruin, Merriam had talked of offering to restore
it at his own expense. Now the money had gone to restore the Palazzo di
Sereno, and to buy motors and aeroplanes and ladies' favours for the
Prince of that name. Yet some day Angela meant to make the pilgrimage,
when she had built her house and given herself a starting-point.

"I've other things to do," she replied coldly. "I shall see only the
Missions I may happen to pass on this tour."

"Well, some folks'd ruther save this trip for a weddin' journey," Sealman
suggested. "I suppose widows have weddin' trips, don't they?" He gazed
thoughtfully at the gray coat and gray-veiled motor hat which Angela wore
to protect her from the dust. She sat in front beside the chauffeur for
the motion of the car was less there, but she decided that, if she were
ever hypnotized into associating with the Model again, she would take the
back seat.

"The Missions for mine," he went on, when his passenger made no reply.
"There's some prefers the Yosemite, but there's no motorin' there. And if
I was a girl I wouldn't feel married without a motor. In the Yosemite
there's; so much honeymoonin', the minute you see a lady with a man you
put 'em down for bride and groom."

Angela had cause to remember this remark later.

"Speakin' of honeymoons, looks as if there'd been some around here," the
codfish continued chattily.

They were running about through the suburbs of Los Angeles, and if
Sealman's passenger had deigned to answer she would have been compelled
to agree. It was ideal honeymoon-land; a moving picture, painted in
colours, seemingly by rival artists of different nations, for the mingling
of effects was mysterious as the scenery of dreams.

Just as Angela told herself that it was like Holland in the jewel-box
neatness of little streets and little houses--behold the Riviera, with
groups of palms among tropical flowers, and feathery pepper-trees,
graceful and large as giant willows! Then, when she had decided on Italy
or Southern France as a simile, far-off, sharp mountain peaks, a dark,
grotesquely branching pine in filmy distance, and a doll's house with a
red pointed roof, suggested a sketch on a Japanese fan.

This was a spick-and-span little world for a perpetual honeymoon, and at
the entrance of the streets there should have been signs, Angela thought,
saying, "No one but brides and grooms need apply." It was all
distractingly pretty; and though Angela had already admired the big
handsome houses of Los Angeles and Pasadena, these rose-bowered bungalows
caught her fancy more. After all, there is a sameness about millionaires'
mansions the whole world over; but here was something new, invented by
California.

Cupid himself might have been the architect so daintily was each little
dwelling planned for the happiness of two lovers; so, of course, all the
women who lived in these houses must be young and beautiful. All the men
must be handsome, and husbands and wives must adore each other. No
creatures old or fat or inclined to be disagreeable would dare come
house-hunting here; or if they did come, surely some wise suburban by-law
would rule them out! Once in, as residents, the happy lovers would remain
forever young.

"It's to be Riverside to-morrow, ain't it?" Sealman inquired, when, full
two hours later than she had expected, he brought her back to the door of
her hotel.

Angela hesitated. In California, at most times of year, it is hopeless to
use the weather as a handle to hang an excuse upon. She looked at the sky.
It was a vast inverted cup of turquoise.

"Are you sure the car is equal to so long a run?" she asked mildly.

The likeness between Mr. Sealman and a codfish became so marked that
Angela feared he was going to be ill.

"You don't know what the car can do," he answered reproachfully.

"Perhaps not," she admitted. "Very well, we'll start at eight."

"Better make it earlier."

She made it earlier, and was actually ready; but at half-past eight
Sealman appeared on foot. Of the car's health he said nothing, but of his
mother's health he said much. She had suffered a relapse. The doctor had
been with her all night. How Sealman was going to pay the bill he did not
know. Would Mrs. May go to Santa Catalina Island this morning, and to
Riverside to-morrow? There was time to catch the boat.

The doctor's bill was a trump card. Angela consented to wait for
Riverside, and she took Kate to that fair island loved by Californians,
and by fishermen all over the world.

The name Avalon alone would have lured her; for who would not set sail for
Avalon at a moment's notice?

Santa Catalina is Corsica in miniature, Corsica without Napoleon or
vendetta. But it has sea-gardens, fathoms deep under green water, where
flowers bloom and fish glitter in a dazzle of jewelled armour beneath the
glass floors of flat-bottomed boats. The fishermen were catching
yellow-tail that day, too, just as Franklin Merriam had caught them in his
time; and his daughter went back to Los Angeles full of thoughts of him.

To-morrow was to be held sacred to her father's memory; for his old home,
vanished off the face of the earth now, had been near Riverside. Angela
wanted the day to be perfect, unmarred by trouble or vexation; and though
she had her fears, when morning came the Model started off so well that
hope began to rise.

Making a detour, they spun past the old Mission San Gabriel, where she had
arrived ignominiously by trolley four days ago; and turning for a look at
the facade, Angela saw a yellow car drawn up in the fleecy shadow of a
pepper-tree. A chauffeur sat next the driver's empty seat, apparently half
asleep.

"That's the motor I wanted to ask you about, a day or two ago," Angela
said, bending forward to speak to Sealman--for she had kept her resolution
to sit behind him. "It's the handsomest I've seen; and we've met it
several times; two men in it always, in chauffeur's caps and goggles."

"Oh, _that_ car!" remarked the inventor with indifference. "That's what we
call Smith's Folly. Thad Smith, a fellow who made a pile of money, had the
thing built to order, and it brought him bad luck--lost every cent the
day she was finished, and he's been trying to sell her ever since. _I_
wouldn't take her for a present."

Angela leaned back, hiding a smile behind her motor veil. She did not
believe that Mr. Sealman would have the offer. His little car looked a
badly made toy compared with that golden chariot. She wondered if it had
been sold, or if it would be worth while to make inquiries. Somebody was
perhaps trying it, she thought, for often it followed the road taken by
Sealman; or, when their car broke down, as it usually did, the yellow
giant shot ahead, disappeared and occasionally appeared again.

"I should like to find out if it's still for sale," she said to herself,
gazing back admiringly. "Why shouldn't I have a motor of my own?"

As the Model trundled her out of sight, a man walked round the corner,
and, springing into the yellow car, took the driver's seat.




XI

THE MAN AT THE WHEEL


Nick had not been visiting the Mission that day. But he had been there
before, gabbling fluent Spanish with the verger. This was more than Angela
could do, though she knew the cathedrals of Spain! In the morning Nick had
made an early start with his new car, and, after four long days of
constant practice, at last he experienced the joy of confidence in
himself, at the wheel. He was now licensed to drive, and the yellow
automobile was his, body and soul.

The chauffeur, a reedy and extremely young youth, with a sharp nose and a
keen sense of humour, had scraped acquaintance with Sealman. Without
giving away any information on his side, he had always contrived to find
out, if not where the Model was going, at least where it was hoped she
might go. It was to be Riverside to-day; and after a preliminary spin from
six to eight, Nick had been lingering near the Mission, paying a friendly
visit to the owner of the Big Grapevine and the Trained Owls. This man was
the most taciturn of mortals. But something behind the locked windows of
his soul recognized a congenial spirit in the open windows of Nick
Hilliard's, and the two had made friends years ago. The morning's call was
a renewal of old acquaintance; and the sea-green light under the
Grapevine was as clear as on another May day, when Nick was six years
younger. The alligators were larger; but the white-faced owls were
unchanged--unless perhaps a little wiser, a little more instructed in the
oldest secrets of an old, secretive world.

"See the way that white-veiled witch stares at me with her golden eyes?"
said Nick. "Wish I could flatter myself she remembers me."

"Of course she remembers," said her master, "She's the same one told your
fortune when you were here before."

"I asked her if I was going to amount to anything in the world, and she
nodded her head three times. I felt like sending her a present when Gaylor
made me foreman, and again when I got my ranch. She ought to have had a
diamond crown when the gusher came. But, like an ungrateful beast, I
forgot all about her."

"She knows her business," said the Grapevine man. "Three nods mean three
big strokes of luck."

"Good king!" exclaimed Nick. "I hope that doesn't mean I'm not going to
have any more than three?"

"Anything you want in particular?"

"Well, yes, there _is_ something I'm sort of set on."

"Ask her if you get your wish."

Nick fixed his eyes upon the owl.

"Do I get my wish?"

She sat motionless on her perch for a moment, consulting her oracle. Then
she suddenly lifted her wings and flapped violently.

"Is that the best answer you can give?" Nick reproached her.

The owl repeated the gesture.

"I guess you want something she doesn't approve of," said the Grapevine
man.

"She might give me a civil 'yes' or 'no.' See here, you Witch of
Endor--_do_ I get my wish?"

The owl closed her eyes, then opened them with a sudden flash of gold, but
would neither nod nor shake her head.

"She knows, but she won't tell," said her master. "Maybe she doesn't want
to upset your feelings."

"She can't scare me with her mysteries," Nick laughed. "I'm going right
ahead on the same lines." Then he said good-bye to his friend and went out
to his motor. But there was enough of the boy in him to be disappointed
because the white witch had refused an answer.

The car had a proud way of dismissing the landscape impatiently, if given
her head; but as her new owner was not out to show what he could do, she
was compelled to crawl when she would have flown, like Pegasus harnessed
to the plough.

To-day, the task of subduing herself was not so painful as usual, for the
blue car went on mile after mile, through the far-stretching orange
groves, without a stop; and Nick enjoyed driving.

"Wish I could remember," he thought, "how I felt when I was a kid, and
walked alone across a room the first time without tumbling on my nose. I
wonder if it was as good as this?"

"This" was very good indeed, and would have been good anywhere--for Nick
was, according to his own way of putting it, a "crank" about doing well
whatever he undertook, and he knew now that he had conquered the
machine--but on such a road, and in the light and shade of orange groves,
it was superlative.

The vast plain, walled with mountains, was an endless city of domed green
temples, richly decorated with the gold of the late orange crop. Beyond
its boundary were vines, cut close in Spanish fashion, which perhaps the
Fathers had taught in Mission days; and there were tall, pink-trunked
eucalyptus trees from whose wood beautiful furniture could be made; then
cities of green and golden temples again, in a desert-frame of tawny
yellow. Everything that was not green was golden. The sun poured gold;
oranges blazed in golden splendour; and California poppies, golden with
orange hearts, swept in a yellow flame over the landscape.

"Gold under the earth, and gold over the earth," thought Nick. "That's
California!" And he thought, too, of the gold of Angela's hair. "She'd
look mighty well in this yellow car, floating along among the white and
gold of oranges and orange-blossoms, all white and gold herself," he said.
"And she's _going_ to look well in it. That's what I got it for. That's
what I've been working for till this auto's fit to eat out of my hand. And
gee! but I've been going some!"

He grinned under his motor mask as he recalled the strenuous hours. He had
enjoyed them, but he had hated the mask; and so soon as the time came--he
thought it must come soon--when he could reap the reward of labour he
meant to shed the abomination. It had served its purpose by letting him
come by accident once or twice within full sight of the Model, safe from
recognition. He had not wanted Mrs. May to find out prematurely that he
was dogging her tire tracks in a car which might have shot past her like
a comet. She had misunderstood him too often already, and he wished her to
think him safe at Lucky Star Ranch; until the moment when she would
rejoice to see him at any price.

More than once during the last four days of practice and probation Nick
had been tempted to offer his services. But common-sense had held him back
when the blue car was in trouble. It had warned him that a little bitter
experience might incline the lady to be lenient. Several minor breakdowns,
disappointments, and vexations were needed before she would see matters
eye to eye with him. And Nick thought himself lucky that, so far, the
Model had not been permanently disabled. Now, if anything happened, he was
ready.

       *       *       *       *       *

Sealman had the air of slowing down, after an unusually long nonstop run,
to show off his acquaintance with the country. "That great sandy stretch
is the bed of the Santa Ana," said he. "Why, there's so much sand and so
little water mostly, they have to sprinkle the bed to keep it from flyin'
about the landscape, as if 'twas a pile o' feathers. It ain't like the
Oro, where first they found gold, and then, when they thought they'd got
the lot, come across more in the cobbles. Not only that, but by some
scientific process or other--you wouldn't understand if I told you--they
washed the river-bed, so the sand and stones riz. 'Stirrin' up the
alluvial deposits' was what they called it; till they could get hold of
the cobbles again, to crush 'em for road-makin'. Roads was needed bad them
days! And at last they hauled out the mud from the bottom to plaster over
the desert that was here, so oranges and olives and grapes could take to
growin'. Sort of wonderful, wasn't it?"

Angela could have told him a great deal more than he had told her, about
these "scientific processes," for her father had been one of the men most
interested in their success. But she kept her knowledge to herself.

"Yes, it's wonderful," she replied. "But--don't you think we'd better be
going on? We've a long way before us, according to the map."

"Yes, we'll go right on," said Sealman. "I just thought I'd stop her and
point out the Santa Ana, for fear you'd miss it." He was anxious to
conceal the fact that it was the Model who had "just thought," but, urging
her to begin again where she had left off, the little brute refused to
budge.

"Is anything wrong?" asked Angela, when Sealman had worked in worried
silence for several minutes.

"Can't see nothing," said he, increasing in codfishiness. "She'll be all
right in a minute. Give her time to breathe!"

Angela gave her time to breathe, but the minute passed, and other minutes
limped after. Sealman sweated and grunted under the open lid of the bright
bonnet. Angela was sorry for him. But she was more sorry for herself, as
she counted the nearest rows of orange-trees for the twenty-fifth time,
following them with her eyes, as they ran up the ankles and legs of the
little yellow mountains. It was luncheon-time, and she was hungry. She had
been reading about the Mission Inn at Riverside, and picturing herself
there, in a cool, large dining-room.

"How far are we from a railway station?" she asked desperately, when her
watch said that they had sat by the Santa Ana's bedside for thirty-five
minutes.

"Can't tell you that, ma'am," snapped Sealman. "But it's too far to walk,
unless you've got seven-league boots."

"What's the matter? Haven't you found out _yet?_"

"Thought it might be the pump. But it doesn't seem to be. I give it up!"
And he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief that left green streaks of
oil.

"But you mustn't give it up. We can't stop here all day."

Sealman grinned viciously. Perhaps he, too, hungered. Certainly he was
hot, and felt like a Socialist. What was this young woman that she should
sit there comfortably and nag him while he was down in the dust? "I don't
see any reason against our stayin' all day," said he. "And I guess the
machine don't."

"Hateful little beast!" exclaimed Angela.

"Who, me or the Model?" Sealman wanted to know.

"I meant the--_alleged_--Model. She's a fraud--a horror. If only I
get--somewhere--I don't care where--I'll never come out with you again,
never, never!"

"You're engaged to me till the end of the month," said Sealman as firmly
as if he alluded to a promise of marriage. "I've refused two other
gentlemen. If you don't use the machine, you'll pay, anyhow."

Angela would have given much if she had brought Kate. To be alone with
these two monsters in an uninhabited world under a blazing sun,
passionately hungry and futilely angry, was a dull adventure.

"You know perfectly well I engaged you only for three or four days," she
said. "That settles it! You shall not cheat me. And since you don't seem
to know what's to become of you or your car for the rest of the day, I
shall decide on my own movements. I'm going to walk."

She sprang out; and Nick, awaiting developments at a safe distance of a
hundred yards in the background, saw a slim gray figure separate itself
from the motionless Model.

"Now's my time, I reckon," he said to himself, and started the car, which
could be done from the chauffeur's seat. He drove at low speed, as if he
were out to enjoy the scenery, and slowed down gently beside Angela, who
was walking in the direction of Riverside. At that rate she might have
reached the nearest railway station in an hour and a half.

Nick's goggles and chauffeur's hat were off. "Why, how do you do, Mrs.
May?" he asked, in his pleasant voice. "Your machine's broke down for good
this time, I'm afraid. Now do let me give you a lift."

"Mr. Hilliard!" cried Angela, taken completely by surprise, as she looked
up from under her sunshade. "Where are you going?"

"I've no particular choice," said Nick. "I'm only in this part of the
country because this part of the country happens to be here. I'd be just
as pleased if 'twas anywhere else. Where are _you_ going?"

Angela began to laugh, and could not stop laughing. Nick, seeing this, and
seeing that she looked a schoolgirl of sixteen in her little motor-bonnet,
ventured to laugh too.

"I was taking to the desert," she said. "But I _wanted_ to go to
Riverside. Is--is this the same old story?"

She could not put her meaning more plainly, because of Mr. Hilliard's
chauffeur; but Nick understood. "I've been learnin' to drive, the last
few days," he said. "And I've seen you, now and then, runnin' about in
that little car. It's an old acquaintance of mine. Sealman tried to sell
it to me last winter. I was sort of sorry to see he'd got hold of you."
Nick was out in the road now, standing beside her, and the big yellow car
was purring an invitation.

"I was sorry for _him_," said Angela. "But I'm not now. He's a cheat. He
pretends I've engaged the car for a fortnight."

"I guess he won't go on along that line now he's seen who I am," remarked
Nick, "because if he does, I'll make his Model an orphan. He remembers me
from last winter. I'll deal with him for you, if you please."

Angela laughed again. "Thank you! He doesn't seem likely to go on very
soon, along any line, does he?"

"Shouldn't wonder if that car's ball-bearings ain't broken," said the
sharp-nosed chauffeur. "That's a real favourite accident of Sealman's.
We've got to know it by heart in Los Angeles. It generally happens with
him--across a trolley track. Takes all day to dismount and fix up again."

"We can't go away and leave him to his fate," said Angela. "After all,
he's human."

Nick could have shouted "Hurr

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