n for employing
Jerrold, because he made up a sort of allegory about a moth loving a star
and trying to fly up to heaven and be near her, or something like that. I
said that a _real_ star couldn't be stupid enough to think him a moth, or,
anyway, not a common one. And he said, 'That's just what she does think
me, _common_.' I knew he meant you, though he didn't speak your name
then. And I thought to myself, 'She didn't look like a silly doll stuffed
with sawdust,' I did you the justice to believe that a great lady,
experienced in the world, would know and appreciate a _man_. I'm just
nobody at all, Mrs. May; but even I'm clever enough for that. I'm sure as
fate, if I were acquainted with all the best kings and princes there are
in the world, I couldn't find a better gentleman than Nick Hilliard. Yet
according to him you didn't have the eyes to see what he was worth. You
not only turned him down, but turned him down saying he was too common for
you."

Angela could stand no more. It was as if the fierce little woman in dusty
blue serge had struck her in the face. She sprang up, very white, her eyes
blazing. "It is not true," she said in a low voice. "He couldn't have told
you I said that."

"He told me you said just the same thing: that he was 'impossible.' That
was the word--a cruel, cruel word."

She was up too, the fiery little school-teacher, and they faced each
other--the tall girl, white as lily grown in a king's garden, and the
little snub-nosed, freckled country schoolma'am.

"Do you mean when I used the word 'impossible,'" asked Angela, "that he
thought I meant it in _such_ a way--meant to tell him that he was an
impossible person?"

"Yes, I do mean just that."

"You're _sure_ of what you say?"

"Dreadfully sure. When I'd got that much out of him--somehow. I hardly
know how--I felt wounded and sore, as I knew he was feeling, and, would
feel all the rest of his life. Oh, I'd have given mine for him! I would
then, and I would now, to make him happy. That's why I came up here--to
find out whether, after all, there could be any misunderstanding between
you that could be righted. He doesn't know I've come. He thinks I'm
staying with a friend in San Francisco. I don't want him to know, ever. I
should die of shame. I wish I could talk in some wise, clever way to you,
and get you to see what a mistake you've made. He loves you so, Mrs. May!"

Then a thing happened which was the last that Sara Wilkins had expecte