"True," said she, musingly, and tapped her teeth.
She tied on her mask once more and drew up her hood, passive, in her mood of deep reflection, to his exuberant demonstrations. At the door she paused and looked back at him, her eyes strangely alluring through the black velvet peep-hole, her red lips full of mysterious promise beneath the black lace fall.
"And I never asked," said she, in a melting tone, "after your wound? Does it hurt you? Will you be able, think you, to face the fatigues to-morrow night?"
"Ah, I have but one complaint, Kitty," he cried, "and that's my mortal passion for you. And when a man's weak with love," he said, "sure it's then he's the strength of twenty."
"Not a step further," said she, "than this door. Think of the chairmen and Bath gossip. Good-night."
SCENE XVI
"And now, child, what's the town talk?" said Mistress Bellairs.
The nights were chilly, and a log crackled on the hearth. Kitty, in the most charming déshabillé, stretched a pink slippered foot airily towards the blaze.
"La, ma'am," said Miss Lydia, as with nervous fingers she uncoiled one powdered roll and curl after another, "all the morning the gossip was upon Sir Jasper's meeting with Colonel Villiers at Hammer's Fields. And all the afternoon——" she paused and poised a brush.