Chapter 7

"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.