XXXII. AN END—AND A BEGINNING
"Come to me if you can. I can give you no hope of happiness, but there is something I should like to explain," Angela said in her letter.
She expected an answer, though she asked for none; but no word came on the morning when she had thought that she might hear. Other people had their letters and were reading them on the veranda, but there was nothing for her. She sat there for a while, cold with disappointment, listening to the tearing open of envelopes and the pleasant crackle of thick letter-paper. Then, when Timmy, the black cat, suddenly leapt off her lap, as if in a mad rush after something he fondly hoped was a mouse, Angela was glad of an excuse to follow. But Timmy, who was of an independent character, evidently believed that he was in for a good thing. He darted across the grass, and with a whisk of eager tail disappeared behind a clump of trees.
"A dragon-fly!" Angela said to herself. For Timmy could not resist the fascination of dragon-flies—a bright and beautiful kind that spent the summer at Lake Tahoe. She followed round the clump of trees, and there was Nick Hilliard coming toward her with Timmy in his arms.
"Oh!" she cried, "I—I thought——"
"I was afraid you'd think it was too early," said Nick as quietly as possible, though his voice shook. "I got in on the train; and after my bath I was taking a walk around, till a decent time to call. Then Timmy came running to welcome me——"
"I believe he must really have seen you!" cried Angela, grateful to Timmy, who was saving them both the first awkwardness of the situation. "He is the most extraordinary cat—quite a super-cat. And you remember, he used always to know what time you were coming to call when we were in San Francisco."
Owing to Timmy, they were spared a meeting on the veranda, and Angela did not offer to take her visitor into the house yet.
There were some quiet places in the garden in the deep shadow of trees, where she could say what she had to say better than between four walls. They strolled on, Nick holding Timmy, who purred loudly, as if glad to welcome the giver of his jade collar.
"I got your letter just in time to catch the train for San Francisco, and then to get on here," Hilliard explained. "Of course, you knew I'd come at once."