"I have no money," exclaimed Rose, sullenly. The interruption had jarred upon her. For a brief space she had fancied herself and the Baron alone in the world. De Leaufort turned angrily upon the fellow. "Who speaks of payment to a comely maid," he demanded.
"Ay, by St. Clara, a beauty like her needs no groat in her pocket, for she carries payment ever in her face," spoke up another fellow, who had been watching the scene with considerable amusement. "I see the end of poor Lillian's reign," he muttered in his beard.
The Baron threw an arm about Rose's waist, and, drawing her to him, pressed a quick hot kiss on her lips. "I am richly paid," he cried, as she sprang from him and bounded off through the woods.
"Richly indeed!" echoed a couple of envious ones.
"And doubtless the treasury is not yet exhausted," laughed one who knew the Baron was not one to let such a beauty lightly slip through his fingers.
For an instant de Leaufort looked ruefully after the girl. She had not seemed to him a girl that would resent a kiss. At a whisper from a companion, however, he smiled, nodded his head, sprang into the saddle, and a moment later nothing but a cloud of dust rose where the gay cavalcade had rested. On they proceeded with a great din and racket, bringing out from every door they passed heads that shook with disapproval over the light-hearted gayety of the rich folks, and their careless misusing of fineries and good clothes, while the poor had to groan and sweat even for such poor rags as they could find to cover their nakedness.
With the queer contradictions of maidenhood, which yearns and spurns all of a breath, Rose fled to her friends only to announce her sudden determination to return to the Bury the very next day. To all their pleas to persuade her to remain, she was obdurate, although a voice deep down within her pleaded their cause with even far greater eloquence than they could command. Indeed, no one could have been more surprised than herself at the sudden resolution. She had passed hours before the castle picturing all sorts of wild, impossible situations with herself as the heroine and the Baron as the hero, and yet, now that something had really happened, she ran away. There was a certain look in the Baron's eyes as his beard had swept across her cheek that told her with unfailing instinct that he would not lightly let her go from him. An exultant subconsciousness told her that, until he found her, there would be no woman in the world for him. And yet she was fleeing from him even as the startled stag at the scent of danger throws back its antlers and leaps through the forest. She questioned her own decision as impatiently as did her friends. She did not quite understand herself. Was there deep down a desire to show her power, to heighten her charm, by giving him a little trouble in finding her? She could not say. She was not sure that she was not playing with her conscience and making a pretence of saving her soul. She knew only that a wild desire to run away possessed her, one too strong to be withstood. She merely obeyed her reigning impulse as she had done all her life. With the morrow a new one might come and then there would be plenty of time to yield to that.