“Well, I’m sorry.  You wanted two rooms.  But the best we can do for you and Mrs. Hilliard is one.”

“Great Scot, you don’t know what you’re talking about!” gasped Nick.  “This is Mrs. May.”

“Beg your pardon, Mr. May.  I thought you said your name was Hilliard.”

“It is.  But hers isn’t.  We—­I—­I’m only her guide,” stammered Nick, so deeply embarrassed for Angela’s sake that for the moment he lost his presence of mind.  “It’s the last straw,” he thought.  “She’ll never forgive me.”  And he dared not look to see how she had taken the blow, until she surprised him by laughing.  She was blushing a little, too.

“Do you remember the laundry in New Orleans?” she asked.  “I’m afraid it will have to be the laundry for you again, or else a refrigerator.”

Nick was of opinion that the refrigerator would better suit the state of his complexion, which needed cooling, but his relief at seeing Angela amused, not offended, was too great for words.  He mumbled something vague about any cupboard or cellar being good enough, and began to recover himself; but his confusion had been contagious.  The hotel manager caught the disease, and hoped Mrs. Willard would excuse him—­no, he meant Mrs. Day—­no, really he began to be afraid that he didn’t remember rightly what he meant!  He’d got Mrs. Milliard and Mr. Hay mixed up, and would they sort themselves, please?  Once he had them straightened out in his mind, he’d try to keep them straight.

“Has my maid come on from El Portal?” Angela thought this a propitious moment for a question on some other subject.

“Your maid?  No, Mrs. Hill, she hasn’t.”

“And no message?  How strange!”

“Nothing that I’ve heard of.  But I’ll let you know.  If Mr. Mayard—­Mr. Mill, will come with me to the ’phone, when you’re in his room—­I mean, when you’re in yours—­we may get on to El Portal.”

Angela was still laughing to herself, when word was brought by a chambermaid that Kate had telephoned from El Portal.  She had hurt her ankle in getting into the stage (Angela could quite imagine that!), and had not been able to proceed.  It was not, however, a regular sprain.  She was in bandages, but better; and it was now settled that, without fail, she was to meet Mrs. May at Wawona to-morrow.  “And your husband wants to know,” added the chambermaid, “what time you would like to have your lunch.”

“He is not my husband,” said Angela.

The young woman froze.

“We are friends.”

The scandalized muscles relaxed.  There was a high nobility in friendship.  The chambermaid herself had a friend, who talked a great deal about Plato, in the cheap edition.

“And will you please say I shall be ready in twenty minutes?”

Standing on the hotel veranda together, after luncheon, “Mrs. Mill and Mr. Hayward”—­he restored to calmness—­could look thousands of feet down to the floor of the valley.  Exactly how many thousands of feet there were Angela refused to be told, for the distance seemed illimitable, and cold facts might dwarf imagination.  They saw the Yosemite Falls, a quivering white vein on a dark wall a million miles away.  Mirror Lake was a splinter of glass on a pavement of green tiles.  Nevada and Vernal Falls were pale yet bright as streaks of stardrift, in the blue haze of distance.