DANGEROUS TRIBUTES.
ELOQUENT as Wainsworth had proved himself, in the presence of Adam, he
was but an indifferent love’s-man, now that he found himself alone with
Garde.
“I wanted to come back for—for the papers,” he stammered.
“Yes,” said Garde, whose spirit of elfishness Henry always aroused,
“they would soon have missed you sorely.”
“Would they—What, papers?—Oh, you are making fun of——”
“I am making a search to find them,” interrupted Garde. “Here they are.
I am so sorry they have detained you.”
“Thank you—oh, thank you,” said Henry, still stumbling confusedly. “It
is such a lovely day I thought I should like to come back and—and—and
see—if I had really left them here.”
“Yes, such a lovely day would make any one wish to do the same thing,”
said Garde, gravely. “Now that you have them, you must be very happy
again.”
“Yes, oh yes—no, no, the papers haven’t made me happy.”
“Then I am sorry you are sad,” said Garde. “Perhaps the lovely day
outside will make you feel more joyous again.”
“But I am not sad,” protested Henry, getting momentarily redder. “I
wanted to say—I wanted to come back——”
“Yes, you did say so, to get the papers.”
“No—yes!—but I wanted to say——”
“That you had left them, because it was such a lovely day?”
“Yes, of course, but—no, no, I wanted to say—church!”
“Oh, they are church papers, Mr. Wainsworth?” asked Garde innocently.
“No, I—I wanted to say it is such a lovely day——”
“You have said so many things that you may have mentioned the day
before.” Garde’s eyes were dancing, but he had hardly dared to look at
her face, lest his tongue should fail him utterly.
He now fixed his attention on the table with all his power of will.
“I wanted to say, if the Sabbath is a lovely day, like this, may I not
walk to meeting with you and David Donner?”
Piqued somewhat by the way Adam had treated her, Garde instantly saw a
possible opportunity of arousing Adam’s jealousy. He would doubtless
attend meeting. He might see her with Henry. As Prudence would also be
there, with her father, there might be further developments.
“If it is a lovely day, Mr. Wainsworth,” she answered, “I think Granther
Donner will be glad of your company, but if it is not a lovely day,
Granther and I will have to get along as best we may, alone, I suppose.”
“No, I meant any sort of a day!” cried Wainsworth, desperately. “If the
Sabbath is any sort of a day. I only said if it was as lovely as to-day
because any day, would be a lovely day, if——” and there he stuck.
“If it were as lovely as to-day,” Garde supplied.
“Yes,” said Henry, hopelessly. “Then—then that is settled?”
“Do you mean the weather? It ought to be settled, I should think.”
“No, I mean that I am to go with you and David Donner to meeting, no
matter what sort of a day it is.”
“I think Granther will be glad of your company,” said Garde again. She
led the way back to the living-room before Henry could frame any more of
his tumble-down speeches.
Prudence and her mother were both here, now, and both looked up to smile
at Wainsworth, whom they had grown to like for his evident sincerity.
Mrs. Soam was a pleasant woman, with a double chin from which it seemed
all manner of comfortable little chucklings of good-nature took their
start. She should have been the mother of several boys, for she liked
nice boys and felt a sense of motherhood over all she knew. Prudence was
not at all like her mother. Her face was small and serious. She spoke
with a quaint drawl. Although quite as old as Garde, she appeared so
unsophisticated and childish, so quiet and unassertive that no one would
have looked to find womanly emotions, in her breast.
“Well, Henry,” said Mrs. Soam, who always called “her boys” by their
first names, “how have you been and what have you been doing? Have you
heard from England recently? How was your mother, when you heard?”
“She was quite well, thank you,” said Henry, who could talk to Garde’s
aunt without confusion, “but I have not heard from her recently. Oh—I
nearly forgot—I have heard from England, in a manner. That is, a friend
I knew there, arrived in Boston only yesterday.”
“Yes? And who was that?” said Mrs. Soam.
Garde had started to go up-stairs to her own apartment, which she shared
with Prudence, but she halted at the door and came back, for Wainsworth
said:
“His name is Adam Rust.”
Garde and Prudence both took up some knitting and began to ply the
needles, over which their eyes were bent, intently.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Soam, encouragingly. “Is he a Puritan?”
“I don’t know,” said Wainsworth, frankly. “I think perhaps he is. At any
rate, he belongs here, I feel sure. But wherever he belongs, or whatever
he is, he’s a splendid fellow. I was riding to hounds when we met. My
horse threw me, and my foot was caught in the stirrup. I was being
dragged when Rust stopped my run-away horse. He is one of the most
superb horsemen I ever knew.”
“Why, do you mean that he saved your life?” inquired Goodwife Soam. “It
must have been a terrible moment.”
“I haven’t much brains, but I was about to lose what I had,” said
Wainsworth, generously. “He came in the nick of time. And afterwards,
when I happened to be a bit short of funds—as a man will, you know,
sometimes—why, he loaned me nearly every penny he had in the world!”
“Was that not most improvident?” said the listener.
“Yes, I suppose it was. You know, you wouldn’t call him exactly
provident. He is too good-hearted a fellow to be that, you know. He is
one of those fellows you can tell anything about yourself. I tell him
everything.”
He looked up at Garde, as he said this, wishing he could tell her the
half that he had confided to Rust. She never lifted her eyes, however,
from her knitting.
“And what did he tell you of your mother?” asked Mrs. Soam.
“Oh, nothing. He never knew the mater.” Henry tried to think what Adam
had told him. “He just—well, told me of a few general matters.”
Garde listened eagerly, almost breathlessly, dwelling on every word
concerning Rust, but her aunt returned once more to the subject of
Wainsworth’s mother and no more was heard of Adam, for Henry presently
bade them all good day and proceeded to follow, belated as he was, where
his chief had gone, at the close of the meeting.
When he disappeared, Garde dropped her knitting and went quietly up the
stairs, for the purpose of being alone, to think.
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