"I don't understand you. I have no need of a dagger," I answered stiffly; yet, feeling a fool there in the passage, I followed her into the room.
"Your heart is pierced already?" she asked. "Ah, but your heart heals well! I'll spend no pity on you."
There was now a new tone in her voice. Her eyes still sparkled in mischievous exultation that she had proved right and I come away sore and baffled. But when she spoke of the healing of my heart, there was an echo of sadness; the hinting of some smothered sorrow seemed to be struggling with her mirth. She was a creature all compounded of sudden changing moods; I did not know when they were true, when feigned in sport or to further some device. She came near now and bent over my chair, saying gently,
"Alas, I'm very wicked! I couldn't help the folk cheering me, Simon. Surely it was no fault of mine?"
"You had no need to look out of the window of the coach," said I sternly.
"But I did that with never a thought. I wanted the air. I——"
"Nor to jest and banter. It was mighty unseemly, I swear."
"In truth I was wrong to jest with them," said Nell remorsefully. "And within, Simon, my heart was aching with shame, even while I jested. Ah, you don't know the shame I feel!"
"In good truth," I returned, "I believe you feel no shame at all."
"You're very cruel to me, Simon. Yet it's no more than my desert. Ah, if——"; she sighed heavily. "If only, Simon——," she said, and her hand was very near my hair by the back of the chair. "But that's past praying," she ended, sighing again most woefully. "Yet I have been of some service to you."