e,
coming upon a fuzzy, white ball rolling into itself spirally on a lazy
pathway, she pounced at it, whereupon the thing uncurled with lightning
swiftness, and fled, more like a streak than a kitten, down the drive,
through the open gates and into the street, Miss Betty in full cry.

Across the way there chanced to be strolling a young lady in blue,
accompanied by a gentleman whose leisurely gait gave no indication
of the maneuvering he had done to hasten their walk into its present
direction. He was apparently thirty or thirty-one, tall, very straight,
dark, smooth-shaven, his eyes keen, deep-set, and thoughtful, and his
high white hat, white satin cravat, and careful collar, were evidence
of an elaboration of toilet somewhat unusual in Rouen for the morning;
also, he was carrying a pair of white gloves in his hand and dangled a
slender ebony cane from his wrist. The flying kitten headed toward the
couple, when, with a celerity only to be accounted for on the theory
that his eye had been fixed on the Carewe gateway for some time
previous to this sudden apparition, the gentleman leaped in front of the
fugitive.

The kitten attempted a dodge to pass; the gentleman was there before it.
The kitten feinted; the gentleman was altogether too much on the spot.
Immediately--and just as Miss Carewe, flushed and glowing, ran into the
street--the small animal doubled, evaded Miss Betty's frantic clutch,
re-entered the gateway, and attempted a disappearance into the lilac
bushes, instead of going round them, only to find itself, for a fatal
two seconds, in difficulties with the close-set thicket of stems.

In regard to the extraordinary agility of which the pursuing gentleman
as capable, it is enough to say that he caught the cat. He emerged
from the lilacs holding it in one hand, his gloves and white hat in the
other, and presented himself before Miss Betty with a breathlessness not
entirely attributable to his exertions.

For a moment, as she came running toward him and he met her flashing
look, bright with laughter and recognition and haste, he stammered. A
thrill nothing less than delirious sent the blood up behind his brown
cheeks, for he saw that she, too, knew that this was the second time
their eyes had met. Naturally, at that time he could not know how many
other gentlemen were to feel that same thrill (in their cases, also,
delirious, no less) with the same, accompanying, mysterious feeling,
which came just before Mi