"But—my dear young lady——"
"Thank you—"
"Hey?"
"—for calling me young." She reached out a hand, and, taking the lantern from him, held it high so that the beams fell on her face. "It is many years since our first meeting, and unhappily we have the date of it fixed. Give me credit that I reminded you; for I don't mind confessing that, though it hasn't come to a quarrel yet, my looking-glass and I are not the friends we were."
Here, had the Commandant been a readier man, he might have answered with a compliment, and a truthful one. For indeed it was a very beautiful face that the lantern showed him, and—here was the strange part of the business—it had been growing younger since she stepped off the ship, and somehow it must have contrived, in spite of the darkness, to convey a hint of its rejuvenescence, for the word "young" had slipped from him quite involuntarily.
But, after all, there is nothing so subtle as simplicity, and, after all, the Commandant managed to imply that she must be a witch.
"Then, my dear young lady," he replied, "since you have spirited these females into my quarters, I can only ask you to go and spirit them away again."
She shook her head.
"What! You won't?... Very well, then, I must deal with them, while you go off with the lantern and search for Mrs. Treacher."
"You are a brave man," said she; "and—and I think—by the look of them—you are going to have great fun."