Silence fell between them for a moment.  The rose of sunset burned to ashes-of-rose.  A small clock on the mantelpiece mentioned in a discreet voice that it was a quarter to eight.  Nick got up, rather heavily for a man so lithe as he.

“Well, I must go,” he said.  “Thank you for letting me take, you around San Francisco.  May I come to-morrow morning?”

“Oh, do.  About half-past nine.”  She got up also, feeling miserable, though, as she pointed out to herself, for no real reason.

“I’ll be prompt.”  He put out his hand, and she laid hers in it, looking up to his face with a smile which would not for the world have been wistful.  Suddenly his fingers gripped hers convulsively.

“So it’s all over!” he whispered.

“No, no; not all over,” she contradicted him.  “There’s to-morrow.”

“Yes, there’s to-morrow,” he echoed.

“I told you at first,” and she tried to laugh, “that ’sufficient for the day was the trip thereof.’  Nothing was to be planned ahead.”

“It’s all right, Mrs. May,” Nick answered..  “I want to be glad you’re going to have that McCloud River visit.  And, of course, you’ve got your new place to think of.  No wonder you’re sick of travelling and want to settle down.  It’s all right, and there’s to-morrow, as you say.”

He shook her hand, moving it up and down mechanically, then dropped it, and turned to go.  Another second and the door was opening.  Then it was shutting behind him.  He had gone!  And though he was coming to-morrow for a little while, nothing would ever be as it had been between them.  It was now, not to-morrow, that she was sending him definitely out of her life; and he understood.

Never had Angela thought so quickly.  She trembled as she stood staring at the shut door.  Her cheeks burned, and a pulse beat in her throat, under the string of pearls.  She clasped and unclasped her hands, and they were very cold.

“He shan’t go to that woman, and take her out in my place in the Bright Angel!” she said out aloud, and flew to the door.

“Mr. Hilliard!—­Mr. Hilliard!” she called.

Everything seemed to depend—­though this was nonsense!—­on his not having got to the elevator.  She stood in the doorway, waiting to see what would happen, her blood pounding as if she had taken a really important step; which, of course, was not the case.

He had turned a corner of the corridor and was out of sight, but her voice reached him, and he came back.

“Was there something you forgot to tell me?” he asked.  Perhaps she was going to say that after all she would not go out to-morrow.

“No, not that I forgot—­something I want to say.  Come in again.”

She whisked the tail of her black chiffon dress back into the room.  He followed her, wondering and silently anxious.

“I’ve changed my mind,” she said in a low voice. (There!  He had known it.  She was not going.)