"Frances," the professor was saying, so full of his own pleasure he was not noting their embarrassment, "this is Edward Montague. You've heard me talk of Tom Montague, went to school here when I did, settled out in Rappahannock; this is his son." He laid his hand affectionately on the young man's arm. "He has bought the old Northrup place, you know; I hope he'll make a good neighbor. He has made a fine beginning. Some girl's horse was running away with her in town and he raced up behind and snatched her out of the saddle just before she got to the railroad guards; funny he doesn't know the girl's name."
"I rode on to the post-office," said the young man, looking at neither.
"And some one there knew of the adventure. He was glad enough to get away. Came up to me as soon as he saw my mail,--the names on the envelopes I mean."
"I had intended visiting you to-day," but, strangely enough, the young man's voice was past courtesy, it was fairly pleading.
"Well, well, I wonder--" the professor's gaze, comprehensive at last, fell on Frances, shrinking back against the portière.
There was dead, unbroken silence. In the tense awkwardness of the moment the young man, not knowing what to say, was noting shyly the curl of the girl's dark lashes against her scarlet cheek and the droop of her red mouth.
The girl raised her eyes and gave the visitor one swift look, indignant, imploring; her impulse was to run from the room back to her own, but she could not; she walked quickly to the window and half turned from them instead.
"It was the strangest thing you ever saw," began the young man so hurriedly, his words tripped over one another. "I was just behind her. I saw her riding down the street. It was a curious sight--the farmers, the negroes with their tobacco for sale, you know. Just as she stopped"--another break he felt; she would think he had been watching her all the time--as he had from the moment he caught sight of her across the crowd at Roxie's wheel. "Just as she stopped, an old darkey rattled close by her; he was a sight!" the young fellow laughed nervously; "he had a quilt flopping all around him and as he passed the wind flapped it squarely in her horse's face and he was off, I after him. Pluckiest thing I ever saw, I thought she was gone down on those cobbles there." The professor made a little smothered exclamation. "She was half out of the saddle but she got back somehow, got control of the reins, too. But the horse was headed for the railway. I got up to her just in time."