! And yet she's a pretty minx, too, if she hadn't such a vixenish
temper!"

And then he hummed the last line of his song to Sylvia.

XII.

Five times had Johan, the player's boy, met young Lindley at the edge
of the Ogilvie woods. Five times he had reported nothing of any
interest concerning Mistress Judith Ogilvie, or, rather, the sum of
the five reports had amounted to naught. Once he said that Mistress
Judith was, if anything, quieter than usual. Again he told that her
maids had said that she had been in a fine rage when Master Lindley
had braved her wrath by appearing at her home and demanding an
interview with her. But when her father had taxed her with her
rudeness in refusing to descend and speak with her cousin, she had
merely shrugged her shoulders and said that Master Lindley was of too
little consequence even to discuss. She had been little with the
players. Johan himself had had much trouble in gaining any interviews
with her. She had spent more time than usual sewing with the maids.
She had spent more time with her father, giving as an excuse that she
could not ride abroad because her horse was lame. But Johan averred
that he had seen one of the stable lads exercising Star and there had
been nothing wrong with the horse.

On the sixth night Johan, peering up at Lindley from under his black
curls, asked if any inference could be gathered from aught that he had
reported and Lindley was obliged to confess that he saw none. The
shadows of the trees fell all about them.

"If Mistress Judith knew that I was watching her to make report to
you," hazarded the lad, "it might almost seem as though she were
playing some part for your benefit, so different is all this from her
former ways, but----"

"But she does not know," Lindley concluded the sentence.

"Nay, how could she know?" the lad asked. "If she knew she would but
include me in her hatred of you. She would deny me all access to her,
and that I could not bear. 'Tis all of no use, my master. Mistress
Judith is quite outside of all chance of your winning her. So little
have I done that I'll gladly release you from your bargain if you'll
but give up all hope of winning her."

"I've no faint heart, boy," answered Lindley. "Your Mistress Judith
will come to my call yet, you'll see."

"I'm not so sure I'd like to see that day, my master," answered the
lad, in a whimsical tone. "But, in all honesty, I should tell you--I
mean I'm thinking----" He hesitate