"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.
"A young lady in black, in a blue auto, sir, bought the bag you must have seen in the window," he was presently informed by the youth who had served Angela. "A young lady with golden hair. You might almost have met her on the way."
"I rather think I did meet her," drawled Nick. And though the bag was gone forever, he was suddenly so happy that he could have sung for joy. He hurried away to telegraph Henry Morehouse, at Doctor Beal's Nursing Home, asking a favour which he was sure Morehouse would grant, because they had grown very friendly on the journey East. Next, he called at the largest garage in Los Angeles, and asked advice of the manager about buying a motor-car. "You wrote me in the winter, saying you had a fine one here to dispose of," he said. "Maybe you remember?"
Remember? Why, of course, the manager remembered Mr. Hilliard! Every one had been talking of his Lucky Star gusher.
Nick laughed. "A right smart lot of letters wanting me to buy things came along about that time. I hadn't got any use for an auto then. Now I have. And I want a good one, for touring. The best there is."
"Any make you fancy?"
"I don't know much more about motors than elephants," Nick confessed. "No use pretendin' to be an expert, but I'm going to learn the whole game from A to Z."
"I've got a machine here now," said the man of the garage, "that might suit you if you want something first-rate. Belongs to a millionaire who went broke before he'd had his auto a week. Best American on the market, and better than new. She's found herself. Come and have a look at her." Nick went. "She" was a beauty, inside and out a pale primrose yellow.