“She is most radiantly beautiful.—Look here, Adam, you think I am an ass.”
“My dear old fellow, I didn’t stop to think.”
“You are making fun of me!”
“Impossible, Henry. You told me to ask you some simple questions. Does she live here in Boston?”
“She does, of course she does, or I shouldn’t be here, should I? She lives here and Boston has become my Heaven!”
“Oh, well, thanks for your hospitality. Let’s see,—is she beauti—but I may have asked that before.” He yawned and rubbed his eyes to keep them open. “Oh, I do think of another. What is her name?”
“Her name?” chuckled Wainsworth, walking up and down in an ecstasy of delight. “Her name is the prettiest name in the universe. It’s Garde—Garde Merrill—Garde! Oh, you just love to say Garde, Garde, Garde!”
Adam started, suddenly awake and alert. He passed his hand across his eyes stiffly. His face became as pale as paper. Wainsworth was still walking restlessly up and down, intent on his own emotions.
“It’s a name like a perfume,” he went on. “Garde, Garde. You can’t think how that name would cling to a man’s memory for years—how it rings in a man’s brain—how it plays upon his soul!”
Adam was thinking like lightning. Garde!—She loved Wainsworth—he had said so. It was this that had made her appear so restrained, unnatural, eager to return to the house. This was why her answers had been so evasive. The whole situation broke in on him with a vividness that stunned his senses.