Garde, a vision of beauty distraught, suddenly looked up in his face. Frank amazement was depicted in her glorious eyes.
“I beg—your pardon,” stammered Adam, “I see you were speaking to your cat, and not to me.”
“You!—Adam!—Mr.—Mr. Rust!” she exclaimed. A red-hot blush surged upward, flooding her face, her neck and even her delicate ears. “Not Little-Standing—Oh dear me! Why, Prudence, what did I say? It—it isn’t really——” she stopped in confusion.
“Adam Rust, Kneeling Panther at your service,” supplied the rover. He made a bow that was truly splendid, with a long sweep of his hat and a touch of his knee on the pavement, that for sheer grace could not have been equaled in Boston. “Miss—Mistress Merrill, you have not quite forgotten that you commissioned me to bring you something from Hispaniola?” he added.
“But you—but you have grown so,” said Garde, still as red as a rose. “And to meet like this—that was such a long time ago. I—I thank you for saving my cat. I—we—Prudence, you must thank Mr. Rust.”
Prudence, on whom Adam had scarcely looked, since seeing Garde, had been standing there looking at Rust with a sudden-born love in her eyes that was almost adoration. She had developed, out of the Puritanical spirit of the times, a control of her various emotions that Garde would never possess. Therefore she had herself in hand at a second’s notice.
“I have thanked Mr. Rust,” she answered, quietly.
Garde was stealing a look at Adam the second he turned in politeness to Prudence.
“This was no service at all,” he said. “Pray expend no further words upon it.”
“Oh, Adam, I am so glad——” burst from Garde’s lips impetuously, but she checked her utterance the instant his glance came flashing back to hers, and added. “I mean, Mr. Rust, I am so glad the cat wasn’t hurt, and, Prudence, we must surely return to the house at once.”