could make an apology and renew the offense so innocently in the same
breath." Then her mood changed again in the dropping of an eyelid, and
she sighed and said: "Poor Dick!"

As ever when she was with me, my eyes were devouring her; and at the
sigh and the trembling of the sweet lips in sympathy I found that
curious love-madness coming upon me again. Then I saw that I must
straightway dig some chasm impassable between this woman and me, as I
should hope to be loyal to my friend. So I said: "He loves you well,
Mistress Margery."

She glanced up quickly with a smile which might have been mocking or
loving; I could not tell which it was.

"Did he make you his deputy to tell me so, Captain Ireton?"

Now I might have known that she was only luring me on to some pitfall of
mockery, but I did not, and must needs burst out in some clumsy
disclaimer meant to shield my dear lad. And in the midst of it she
laughed again.

"Oh, you do amuse me mightily, _mon Capitaine_," she cried. "I do
protest I shall come to see you oftener. Tis as good as any play!"

"Saw you ever a play in this backwoods wilderness?" I asked, glad of any
excuse to change the talk and keep her by me.

"No, indeed. But you are not to think that no one has seen the great
world save only yourself, Captain Ireton. What would you say if I should
tell you that I, too, have seen your London, and even your Paris?"

Here I must blunder again and say that I had been wondering how else she
came by the Parisian French; but at this her jesting mood vanished
suddenly and she spoke softly.

"I had it of my mother, who came of the Huguenots. She spoke it always
to me. But my father speaks it not, and now I am losing it for want of
practice."

How is it that love transforms the once contemptible into a thing most
highly to be prized? My eight years of campaigning on the Continent had
given me the French speech, or so much of it as the clumsy tongue of me
could master, and I had always held it in hearty English scorn. Yet now
I was eager enough to speak it with her, and to take as my very own the
little cry of joy wherewith she welcomed my hesitant mouthing of it.

From that we fell to talking in her mother's tongue of the hardships of
those same Huguenot _emigres_; and when I looked not at her I could
speak in terms dispassionate and cool of this or aught else; and when I
looked upon her my heart beat faster and my blood leaped quickly, and I
knew not always what