"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."