The Two Vanrevels | Page 7

kitten."
An agitated kitten should not be detained by clasping its waist, and
already the conqueror was paying for his victory. There ensued a final,
outrageous squirm of despair; two frantic claws, extended, drew one
long red mark across the stranger's wrist and another down the back of
his hand to the knuckles. They were good, hearty scratches, and the
blood followed the artist's lines rapidly; but of this the young man took
no note, for he knew that be was about to hear Miss Carewe's voice for
the first time.
"They say the best way to hold them," he observed, "is by the scruff of
the neck."

Beholding his wounds, suffered in her cause, she gave a pitying cry that
made his heart leap with the richness and sweetness of it. Catching the
kitten from him, she dropped it to the ground in such wise as to prove
nature's foresight most kind in cushioning the feet of cats.
"Ah! I didn't want it that much!"
"A cat in the hand is worth two nightingales in the bush," he said boldly,
and laughed. "I would shed more blood than that!"
Miss Betty blushed like a southern dawn, and started back from him.
From the convent but yesterday--and she had taken a man's hand in
both of hers!
It was to this tableau that the lady in blue entered, following the hunt
through the gates, where she stopped with a discomposed countenance.
At once, however, she advanced, and with a cry of greeting, enveloped
Miss Betty in a brief embrace, to the relief of the latter's confusion. It
was Fanchon Bareaud, now two years emancipated from St. Mary's,
and far gone in taffeta. With her lustreful light hair, absent blue eyes,
and her gentle voice, as small and pretty as her face and figure, it was
not too difficult to justify Crailey Gray's characterization of her as one
of those winsome baggages who had made an air of feminine
helplessness the fashion of the day.
It is a wicked thing that some women should kiss when a man is by; in
the present instance the gentleman became somewhat faint.
"I'm so glad--glad!" exclaimed Betty. "You were just coming to see me,
weren't you? My father is in the library. Let me--"
Miss Bareaud drew back. "No, no!" she interrupted hastily and with
evident perturbation. "I--we must be on our way immediately." She
threw a glance at the gentleman, which let him know that she now
comprehended his gloves, and why their stroll had trended toward
Carewe Street. "Come at once!" she commanded him quickly, in an
undertone.

"But now that you're here," said Miss Betty, wondering very much why
he was not presented to her, "won't you wait and let me gather a
nosegay for you? Our pansies and violets--"
"I could help," the gentleman suggested, with the look of a lame dog at
Miss Bareaud. "I have been considered useful about a garden."
"Fool!" Betty did not hear the word that came from Miss Bareaud's
closed teeth, though she was mightily surprised at the visible agitation
of her schoolmate, for the latter's face was pale and excited. And Miss
Carewe's amazement was complete when Fanchon, without more
words, cavalierly seized the gentleman's arm and moved toward the
street with him as rapidly as his perceptible reluctance to leave
permitted. But at the gate Miss Bareaud turned and called back over her
shoulder, as if remembering the necessity of offering an excuse for so
remarkable a proceeding: "I shall come again very soon. Just now we
are upon an errand of great importance. Good- day!"
Miss Betty waved her hand, staring after them, her eyes large with
wonder. She compressed her lips tightly: "Errand!" This was the friend
of childhood's happy hour, and they had not met in two years!
"Errand!" She ran to the hedge, along the top of which a high white hat
was now seen perambulating; she pressed down a loose branch, and
called in a tender voice to the stranger whom Fanchon had chosen
should remain nameless:
"Be sure to put some salve on your hand!"
He made a bow which just missed being too low, but did miss it.
"It is there--already," he said; and, losing his courage after the bow,
made his speech with so palpable a gasp before the last word that the
dullest person in the world could have seen that he meant it.
Miss Betty disappeared.
There was a rigidity of expression about the gentle mouth of Fanchon

Bareaud, which her companion did not enjoy, as they went on their way,
each preserving an uneasy silence, until at her own door, she turned
sharply upon him. "Tom Vanrevel, I thought you were the
steadiest--and now you've proved yourself the craziest--soul in Rouen!"
she burst out.