The Port of Adventure Part 10

"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 a.s.sented, 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 embarra.s.sing 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 b.u.t.t 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 grat.i.tude. 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 a.s.sociated 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 b.u.t.ton.

"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 bra.s.s. "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."