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