Already, even though I haven’t gone about at all, except just ‘taxying’ up to the hotel, I can see it’s wonderful.  From this window, it’s like looking out on Rome, with all its hills—­Rome transplanted to the sea.  And I know you, and don’t know Mr. Morehouse, who’s my only other resource here.  Besides, he’s a busy man; and if you’re busy, you pretend not to be.”

“I’m having a vacation,” Nick explained.

“All the nicer of you, spending some of it on me.  But I mustn’t let you spend too much.  Besides, I have as little time as you have for running about the country.  Everything has changed with me since I saw you last.”

“I was afraid so!” Nick exclaimed, before he could stop to think.

“Only because I’ve bought land,” Angela said hastily.  “Some of California—­five acres on the peninsula of Monterey—­is mine!  I must decide on an architect.  Isn’t that exciting?  Then, while he’s working out our joint ideas, perhaps I’ll make a visit to Mrs. Harland.  I’m rather tired, and I believe it will do me good.”

“I expect it will,” said Nick bravely.

“Think of the journey I’ve had from Europe, and not a day’s rest since,” went on Angela, with the air of excusing herself.

“It must have been mighty hard on you,” Nick agreed.  He flushed faintly, as if he deserved reproach for inconsiderateness.

“Not that I felt the need of rest till—­till now,” she hurried on.  “It was delicious sailing along with your Bright Angel.  When I’m at Rushing River Camp I shall think of her again, wondering who is spinning about with you in my place.  For you’ll often take your friends out when you’re at home?”

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.