“Oh, in sooth!” She tossed her fair head and rode onward in silence, with compressed lips and angry eyes.
Nigel glanced at her in surprise and dismay. “Surely, Edith,” said he at last, “you have overmuch regard for my honor that you should wish me to break the word that I have given?”
“Your honor belongs to you, and my likings belong to me,” said she. “You hold fast to the one, and I will do the same by the other.”
They rode in silence through Thursley village. Then a thought came to her mind and in an instant her anger was forgotten and she was hot on a new scent.
“What would you do if I were injured, Nigel? I have heard my father say that small as you are there is no man in these parts could stand against you. Would you be my champion if I suffered wrong?”
“Surely I or any man of gentle blood would be the champion of any woman who had suffered wrong.”
“You or any and I or any—what sort of speech is that? Is it a compliment, think you, to be mixed with a drove in that fashion? My question was of you and me. If I were wronged would you be my man?”
“Try me and see, Edith!”
“Then I will do so, Nigel. Either Sir George Brocas or the Squire of Fernhurst would gladly do what I ask, and yet I am of a mind, Nigel, to turn to you.”
“I pray you to tell me what it is.”