I loosed her hand and stood away from her. On my soul, I could not speak. I was tongue-tied, dumb as a dog.
"When you come courting in London," she said, "you must not come so empty of lover's baggage. There ladies ask vows, and protestations, and despair, ay, and poetry, and rhapsodies, and I know not what."
"Of all these I have nothing but despair," said I.
"Then you make a sad lover," she pouted. "And I am glad to be going where lovers are less woebegone."
"You look for lovers in London?" I cried, I that had cried to Barbara—well, I have said my say on that.
"If Heaven send them," answered Cydaria.
"And you will forget me?"
"In truth, yes, unless you come yourself to remind me. I have no head for absent lovers."
"But if I come——" I began in a sudden flush of hope.
She did not (though it was her custom) answer in raillery; she plucked a leaf from the tree, and tore it with her fingers as she answered with a curious glance.