Then she flashed by in the blue automobile, which was as becoming as she had expected.  Nevertheless, Nick jumped up from the chair in which he had been lounging, and frowned.  “Great guns!  If there ain’t that bandy-legged, crop-eared, broken-nosed auto Sealman came to offer Mrs. Gaylor last winter, and wanted to palm off on me!” he grumbled to himself.  “How in creation did that maverick get hold of Mrs. May?  Bet there’ve been bribes flyin’ around somewhere.”

Angela, being on the way back to her hotel from Barrymore’s when Nick caught sight of her, had returned by the time he strolled in to ask if Mr. Sealman was staying there.  Mr. Sealman was not; but the clerk admitted acquaintance with him.

“I want to know if his car’s engaged,” began Nick.

Yes, the clerk happened to know that it was engaged for the next three days, perhaps longer, to a young lady in the hotel who intended to do some touring in the neighbourhood.

“Contract all fixed up?” asked Nick.

Everything was arranged; had just been settled; in fact, Mr. Sealman had gone home.

Nick stood still and thought for a moment, looking as sad as if he had earnestly desired the Model for himself, which was, of course, the impression conveyed.  As he reflected (not so much wondering what he wanted to do next, as whether the thing he wanted to do would “work”) Kate came down, with a letter in her hand ready to post to Mr. Timothy Moriarty, White Orchard, Oregon.

“Oh, sir!” she exclaimed, flitting up to Nick.  “P’raps you don’t remember me, but I’m maid to Mrs. May, and ’twas to me you gave that beautiful bag you said you’d throw out o’ window if I didn’t take it.  Ye don’t mind if I sold it, do ye?”

“Of course not,” Nick assured her.  “I gave it to you for that.”

“I thought so, sir; and I’ve done fine with it to-day.  A gentleman named Barrymore, who keeps a smart jewellery shop, paid me five hundred dollars.  I’m all in a flutter, sir!  Just to think, it’s the same as if you’d give me the money.”

“Not a bit of it,” said Nick.  “Some cow might have swallowed the bag by this time if you’d let me chuck it out of the car window.  Or a goat, maybe.”

“Well, thank you again a thousand times.  And what with you, and my lady, Mrs. May, I’m the happiest girl in the wurruld.”  And Kate tripped away to post her letter.

“‘My lady, Mrs. May,’” echoed Nick, beneath his breath.  “She’s my lady, too—­my angel—­though she doesn’t know it.  And nothing can change that till doomsday.”

He had hated the gold bag when it was rejected by Angela; but now he felt differently.  His heart warmed toward it.  Had it not been hers, if only for a little while?  It had hung on her wrist.  It had been in her hand.  It had held her lace handkerchief, which smelled like some mysterious flower of fairyland.  Now he knew what he had come to learn, there was nothing to keep him any longer; and, walking out of the hotel, he asked the first intelligent-looking man he met where to find Barrymore’s.