The Port of Adventure Part 6

"Yes, ma'am it was. And indade, if ye'll not mind my sayin' so, I begged ye not to go in there, the place looked so disrespectable, as if there might be measles or 'most anything, and the man himself come poppin' out to entice ye in, like the spider with the fly."

"We must go back at once and see if I left the bag after paying for the stole," said Angela. And, explaining to the late owner of the snuff-boxes, she hurried out with Kate, leaving her parcel to be called for.

Little Mr. Isaac Cohensohn, of the brocade shop, made a search, but could not find the missing trinket. Unfortunately, a number of people had been in since the lady left, strangers to him. If madam was sure she had gone out of the shop without the bag, why, somebody must have taken it since then. The question was, who? But she must apply to the police.

"If only I hadn't stuffed in that check-book!" Angela said to Kate.

"Perhaps they would have cashed a check in the hotel. Anyhow, Monsieur Bienvenu would have taken one for what I owe him. Now I'm in the most horrid sc.r.a.pe! I don't know how I'm going to get out of it."

They walked back toward the shop of the snuff-boxes gloomily discussing the situation, which was complicated by the fact that, grown cautious since the attempted burglary at the Valmont, Angela had left her most valuable jewellery in a bank at New York. It was to be sent on, insured, only when she finished her travelling, and settled down.

"I'll have to call the police, I suppose," she said. "Though it's sure to do no good. I shall never see my bag again! I can telegraph to have the checks stopped at the San Francis...o...b..nk; but I had nearly five hundred dollars in the purse. What shall I do about my hotel bill and everything?

And my railway tickets? We'll have to stay till I can get money."

Suddenly, because it seemed impossible, she wanted pa.s.sionately to start at once.

Always she had hated postponing things.

"Somehow, I _will_ go!" she said to herself. "I don't know how--but I will." And she walked on with Kate, back to the hotel, remembering how she had told the head clerk that this was her last day--she was giving up the rooms to-morrow. And the hotel was crammed, because there was a Convention of some sort. It might be that her suite was already let for the next day.

She went to the desk, asking abruptly, "If I find that I need to stop longer, are my rooms free for to-morrow?"

"Unfortunately, we've just let them--not as a suite, but separately," said the young man. "This is a big week for the Crescent City, you know, and we've got people sleeping in bathrooms."

"What shall I do?" Angela exclaimed, trouble breaking down reserve. "All my money and a check-book I had in my gold bag have been stolen. I'll have to telegraph my bank." And she had visions of being deposited in a bathroom, with all her luggage and Kate, and Tim the cat.

"Well, that's a shame," the clerk sympathized. "I'll tell you what I can do. A gentleman came in about an hour ago; said he was looking for a friend; glanced over the register, and must have found the name, because he's going to stay. He's got to sleep in the laundry to-night, but he's among those I've allotted to your suite to-morrow. When he hears a lady wants to keep her room, he's sure to wait for it."

"I don't like to ask a favour of a stranger," Angela hesitated.

"American men don't call things like that favours, when there's a lady in the case," replied the clerk. "It wouldn't do for _you_ to be in the laundry."

It was rather unthinkable; so when the young man added that the newcomer might be in at any minute for luncheon, Angela flitted to her own quarters, which looked more than ever attractive now that they might be snapped away from her. She descended again soon, hoping to hear her fate; and there, by the desk, stood Mr. Nickson Hilliard.

His brown face reddened at sight of Mrs. May, but he did not show surprise. Seeing that she intended to recognize him, his eyes brightened, and Angela felt that she, too, was blus.h.i.+ng a little. She was vexed with him still, but it would have been stupid as well as ungrateful to show her annoyance except by being elaborately polite. After all, she owed him grat.i.tude, which she had wished for a chance to pay.

She put out her hand, and he radiated joy as he took it. Happiness was becoming to Nick. An all too cordial grip he gave, then loosened his grasp in a fright; "I hope I haven't hurt you!" he exclaimed, horrified.

Angela laughed. "Only a tiny bit; and that's better than a fishy handshake. Luckily, I left my sharpest rings in New York. And, oh, the gold bag you saved is gone forever! I've just had it stolen."

"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 wis.h.i.+ng 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."

"It may not be to you, but it is to me, if you don't mind," he persisted.

"I--I made sure you'd know why I didn't--send you any word or--or anything. But if you didn't see it the right way, I've got to tell you now. It was because--of course, it was because--I just didn't dare b.u.t.t in. I was afraid you'd feel, if I had the cheek to write a note, or follow up and speak to you in the hotel, that I was--kind of takin' advantage of what was an accident--my luck in gettin' a chance to do a little thing for you. A mighty small thing; 'twouldn't have been visible except in a high-powered microscope, and only then if you looked hard for it. So I said to myself, 'Twas enough luck to have had that chance.' I'd be a yellow dog to presume on it."

Instantly Angela realized that it was her vanity which had been hurt by his seeming negligence, and that it was stroked the right way by this embarra.s.sed explanation. She was ashamed of herself for drawing it out, yet she was pleased; because she had been really hurt. Now that she need not puzzle over the man's motives, she would perhaps cease to think of him. But she must be kind, just for a minute or two--to make up for putting him in the confessional, and to prove the grat.i.tude she wished to show.

"You must be a very modest person, if you didn't understand that I longed to hear--_lots_ of things you wouldn't let the newspapers get hold of,"

she smiled. "Of course, it was interesting to read about that wretched man--Dutchy, or whatever they called him. And as he seems to have stolen from heaps of people, I suppose it's well for the world that he'll be shut up in prison--although I can't bear the thought of prison for any one. It stifles me. There ought to be some other kind of punishment. But I _did_ want to know what happened in your room after----"

"Nothing much happened," said Nick. "The little beast was all in. I'd kind of got on his nerves, and he knew I'd dig a hole in the ground with him if he so much as peeped. I just rounded him up, and then the police came and played out the rest of the hand. As for you spoilin' my visit to New York, why ma'am, you _made_ it. I had the time of my life."

Angela laughed, because he called her "ma'am" (which was even funnier than "lady," from the hero who had saved her life), and because all his expressions struck her as extremely "quaint."

"It was a very short time of your life then. I should have thought you'd want to stay weeks in New York, as you hadn't been there for so long--and you'd travelled so far. You see, I saw in the paper that you'd come from California. And that interested me, because my--because dear friends of mine have told me so much about California." She did not add that she was on her way there, but, of course, he might suspect, meeting her in New Orleans, if he were curious concerning her movements.

"I did mean to stay some time when I went East," he admitted, "but--well, perhaps I was homesick. Anyhow, I felt as if I'd got a hurry call to go home."

"What an odd coincidence, our meeting here!" Angela spoke out her thought.

"Ye-es," a.s.sented Nick. "I reckon it does seem that way." He was interested in the pattern of the carpet. "If you won't think it a liberty, now I _am_ here," he began again, "I'll be mighty glad to try and find your bag. If you'll tell me just how and where you lost it----"

Angela shook her head. "You're not to spend your time fussing with the police, as you did in New York."

"But I'd like it better than anything," he said. "I didn't come to New Orleans to see the sights, anyhow. I'll feel down and out if you won't let me help. 'Twill seem as if I'd managed wrong in New York."

"Oh, if you're going to feel like _that_!" And forthwith Angela told him the story of her loss.

"All your money and a check-book full of blank checks!" he echoed.

"Yes. I've wired already to have the checks stopped for the bank's sake.

But it's a bore. And I was fond of that bag. Besides, I had about five hundred dollars in my purse. Now I shall have to wait here till I can get more."

"You wanted to go?" he asked.

"Yes--to-morrow. However, that doesn't matter."

"It does, if you wanted to. But, see here, ma'am, I've thought of something."

"My name is Mrs. May," said Angela, smiling.