It was on the tip of Nick's tongue to answer, "Bright Angel was bought for you; named after you, and I can never bear to take anybody else, now you've finished with her—and me." But that, like claiming a promise half made, "wouldn't have been fair." If he hinted that the car had been got for her sake, she would be distressed. Some men in his place would have said—whether meaning it or not—"No other woman shall ever go with me in that auto." And the wish to say this was in Nick's mind, but he knew that it would be in bad taste. Besides, there was a woman who would want to try his car, and it would be unfriendly to deny her. So he said, "There is one friend I must take: Mrs. Gaylor. I've talked to you about her. She'll be interested in Bright Angel when I get home."
"Yes; of course," replied Angela. It was extraordinary how much she disliked the picture of Nick and a beautiful dark woman together in the car where her place had been by his side. Could it be that Theo Dene was right? Was Nick's interest in her—Angela—less than, and different from, his interest in Mrs. Gaylor? She had no right to know, no right to want to know, still less to try to find out. Yet she felt that not to know very soon would make her lose sleep, and appetite, and interest in daily life.
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."