"There will never, never be anything in my life again like this," she
said. "I've never lived. I've never done the things I wanted to do. There
was always some one or something to keep me back. Now, for a week or a
fortnight, I shall live--live! nothing and no one shall keep me back." She
knew how absolutely contradictory this was, after taking so much pains to
"let the 'forest creature' down gently," and begin all over again. But she
did not care. Nothing mattered, except that she could not send him to Mrs.
Gaylor. As gaily as she had embarked upon the "little adventure" at Los
Angeles, did she now face the great one.
Nick, too, was violently happy, happier than he had ever been or supposed
it possible to be. At Los Angeles he had hardly dared to hope for
anything beyond the pleasure of having this woman by his side for a few
hours. Since then, his feelings had, as he expressed it to himself, been
running up and down, like a thermometer in changeable weather; but they
had been "mostly down," and during the last few days had mounted little
above freezing-point. Now the sudden bound bewildered him. He did not know
why Angela had changed again at the very moment when she had seemed most
cold; but she _had_ changed, and almost fiercely he determined now to
fight for her.
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