taken up with the bother that ought to have been mine! You were too busy
even to let me hear what happened that night, after----" Suddenly she was
sorry that she had begun. It was silly and undignified to reproach him.

His face grew scarlet, as if he were a scolded schoolboy.

"Too busy!" he echoed. "Why, you didn't think _that_, did you? You
couldn't!"

"What was I to think?" asked Angela, lightly. "But really, what I thought
isn't worth talking about."

"It may not be to you, but it is to me, if you don't mind," he persisted.
"I--I made sure you'd know why I didn't--send you any word or--or
anything. But if you didn't see it the right way, I've got to tell you
now. It was because--of course, it was because--I just didn't dare butt
in. I was afraid you'd feel, if I had the cheek to write a note, or follow
up and speak to you in the hotel, that I was--kind of takin' advantage of
what was an accident--my luck in gettin' a chance to do a little thing for
you. A mighty small thing; 'twouldn't have been visible except in a
high-powered microscope, and only then if you looked hard for it. So I
said to myself, 'Twas enough luck to have had that chance.' I'd be a
yellow dog to presume on it."

Instantly Angela realized that it was her vanity which had been hurt by
his seeming negligence, and that it was stroked the right way by this
embarrassed explanation. She was ashamed of herself for drawing it out,
yet she was pleased; because she had been really hurt. Now that she need
not puzzle over the man's motives, she would perhaps cease to think of
him. But she must be kind, just for a minute or two--to make up for