either her
name nor her rank. But as I stand here, Ralph, I saw her, a guest, at
that feast of which I spoke; and Edwyn Sandys picked not his maids from
such assemblies."

I stopped him with my hand upon his shoulder. "She is one of Sandys'
maids," I asserted, with deliberation, "a waiting damsel who wearied of
service and came to Virginia to better herself. She was landed with her
mates at Jamestown a week or more agone, went with them to church and
thence to the courting meadow, where she and Captain Ralph Percy, a
gentleman adventurer, so pleased each other that they were married
forthwith. That same day he brought her to his house, where she now
abides, his wife, and as such to be honored by those who call themselves
his friends. And she is not to be lightly spoken of, nor comment
passed upon her grace, beauty, and bearing (something too great for her
station, I admit), lest idle tales should get abroad."

"Am I not thy friend, Ralph?" he asked with smiling eyes.

"I have thought so at times," I answered.

"My friend's honor is my honor," he went on. "Where his lips are sealed
mine open not. Art content?"

"Content," I said, and pressed the hand he held out to me.

We reached the steps of the wharf, and descending them he entered his
barge, rocking lazily with the advancing tide. His rowers cast loose
from the piles, and the black water slowly widened between us. From over
my shoulder came a sudden bright gleam of light from the house above,
and I knew that Mistress Percy was as usual wasting good pine knots. I
had a vision of the many lights within, and of the beauty whom the world
called my wife, sitting erect, bathed in that rosy glow, in the great
armchair, with the turbaned negress behind her. I suppose Rolfe saw the
same thing, for he looked from the light to me, and I heard him draw his
breath.

"Ralph Percy, thou art the very button upon the cap of Fortune," he
said.

To myself my laugh sounded something of the bitterest, but to him, I
presume, it vaunted my return through the darkness to the lit room and
its resplendent pearl. He waved farewell, and the dusk swallowed up him
and his boat. I went back to the house and to her.

She was sitting as we had left her, with her small feet crossed upon the
cushion beneath them, her hands folded in her silken lap, the air from
the waving fan blowing tendrils of her dark hair against her delicate
standing ruff. I went and leaned against the window, facing h