"That's too bad," he remarked. But he did not look cast down. "I'll rummage New Orleans for it, if you give me leave to have a try," he volunteered.
"Thank you," she said. "But I shall have to tell the police, I suppose. Not that there's much hope."
"You wouldn't let me set the ball rolling, would you?" he asked, as if he were begging a favour instead of wishing to do one. "I mean go to the police for you, and all that?"
"How kind you are!" exclaimed Angela. "But—no, indeed, I won't spoil your visit to New Orleans as I did your visit to New York."
Nick looked astounded. "What makes you think you spoiled my visit to New York?"
Here was Angela's chance for a gentle reproach, and she could not resist the temptation of administering it, wrapped in sugar.
"I don't think. I know. And it distressed me very much," she said, sweetly. "I read in the papers that you hadn't been in New York since you were a boy; that you were there to 'enjoy yourself.' And all your time was 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."