“I have documentary proof right here,” he laughed, sliding his hand inside of his coat. The kitten was dry and warm now and it mewed hungrily.
“The dear little thing,” she exclaimed. “Give it to me, won’t you?”
“Indeed I will,” he said fervently. “I am glad to find so safe a harborage for it. And ten times glad that I had the luck to find it just in time to give it to you.”
She beamed at him, fondling the wriggling little beast.
“I am going to call it Channoah,” she said, mimicking her childish pronunciation archly. The maid standing by, and the moving crowd all about, they stood chatting some minutes. The sunrays danced on the little waves of the harbor, the soft August weather of the sub-tropical winter of the southern hemisphere was clear and bright, the yellow walls of the custom house, of its warehouses, of the arsenal and military school and the army hospital, strung out along the water-front, with the bushy-headed leaning rough-trunked palms between and the red tiled roofs above made a fine background. Beyond and above the round bulging green Cariocas rose hill behind hill, topped and dominated by the sharpened camel’s hump of Corcovado. From one of the islands a bugle call blew. The throng hummed in many tongues. Then John asked:
“And may I hope to see you again before you leave?”
Her expression changed entirely, her face fell and she looked confused. She said:
“I am afraid not. I quite forgot everything in my pleasure at seeing a fellow-countryman and an old playmate. I could not deny myself the indulgence of greeting you and then I quite lost myself, it was so natural to be with you. But Bertie may be back any minute and it would never do for him to know I have been talking to you. Please go now.”
Her manner was constrained and her air was resuming that distance and hauteur which he was used to seeing in her.
“Goodbye,” she said, “and thank you for the kitten.”