“Of a verity! no,” I retorted. “It would be to cheat the other of every chance of happiness.”
“If one be not to blame,” said Peg, in a wandering way of talk, “if one be not to blame for the birth of one's love, neither should one be blamed for its death. And if one is not to marry without love, one should not continue, the wife with the husband nor he with her, when love has met its end. You yourself have shown me the wrong of that. Ah, watch-dog! am I not right?”
“Now, in all my days,” said I, “I have not been made to talk so much on love. The question is above me.”
“You said folk should not wed wanting love.” Peg paused to stamp her foot at me in saucy vehemence. “If that be true, then folk should not remain wedded wanting love. Do you not think, if a wife were to cease to love her husband, she should leave him? Does she not owe him that duty? And you have said, watch-dog, as you shall not forget, that her love, too, is not her fault.”
“Still, I should deem it great pity,” said I, “were a wife to leave her husband.”
“And that is mighty loyal to your friend,” cried Peg, in a hot spurt of indignation. “Did not the General's wife leave a husband for him? It was well for both her and him they did not consult with you. She might have been unhappy yet, and he never happy at all.” Then, gravely, following a pause: “watch-dog, you are dull beyond description.”
When I reflected on my blind inference of criticism against the General, and his wife in her grave, I was willing to concede as much. However, I took refuge in saying nothing, waiting for my blunder to blow by.
After a moment, and as we walked in a wide grassy place side by side, Peg took up my hand. Finding the round, white mark where the wound of her leopard tooth had healed, she gazed on it a moment and sighed. Then, before I could stay her, she kissed it.
“Peg's mark!” she exclaimed, as though she conversed with her thoughts; “Peg's mark for her slave!” Then lifting up her eyes to mine: “I love that mark; so much of you I love.” Then hiding a rogue of a smile which began to creep about the corners of her mouth, for she would be amused, it would seem, over the confusion into which her caress had thrown me—“Tell me, slave, do you not wish now it were a great hideous scar to overwhelm you?”
“And wherefore?” I asked. I could see how she meant to tease me with her mockeries, and would give her no answer to go upon. “I regard that as a very excellent scar as it is,” said I. “I would not have it larger for a good deal.”