Adam flushed with innocent and modest pride, thus to impress his small admirer, who was named so formidably. He thought that nothing so pleasant had ever happened in all his life.
“It is too sad to live with Indians,” he answered. A mist seemed to obscure the light in his eyes and to cast a shadow between them and the sweet face at which he was looking with frank admiration. The cloud passed, however, as clouds will in the summer, and his gaze was again one of illuminated smiles. “I am a sailor now,” he said, with a little boast in his voice. “To-morrow morning we are going to start for Hispaniola.”
“Oh dear me!” said Garde, in sheer despair of an adequate expression of her many emotions. Then she added contritely: “I mustn’t say ‘Oh dear me!’ but—oh dear—I wish I might.”
“I shan’t mind,” said Adam.
“I wish I could go to Hispaniola, too,” said Garde, honestly. “I hate to be kept here as quiet as a clock that doesn’t go. I suppose you couldn’t take me? Let’s sit down with the kitten and think it over together.”
“I don’t think we could take any girls,” said Adam, seating himself at her side on the porch, “but I could bring you back something when I come.”
“Oh, let’s talk all about what we would rather have most,” Garde responded.
So their fingers mingled in the fur of the kitten and they talked of fabulous things with which the West Indies were reported to abound. His golden hair, and her hair so darkly red, made the picture in the sunlight a thing complete in its brightness and beauty. The wind floated a few stray filaments, richly red as mahogany, from the masses on Garde’s pretty brow, across to the ringlets on Adam’s temple. To and fro, over these delicate copper wires, stretched for its purpose, the sweet love that comes first to a lad and a maid, danced with electrical activity.
“If you are going to-morrow,” said Garde, “you must see all the flowers and everything now.” She therefore took him by the hand and led him about the garden, first she, then he, and then she once more carrying the kitten.
They were still in the midst of their explorations of the garden, which required that each part should be visited several times, when the gate opened and in walked Garde’s tall, stern-looking grandfather.