"Yes. Who do you think rode up and tossed it down among the cabbage-leaves, and asked for a flower?"
"Not—not Mr. Lisle?"
"Yes, but it was Mr. Lisle."
"And you—did you faint?"
"Not I. I stooped and pretended to be tying my shoe the moment after I recognized him. Of course he may have been staring at me for five minutes, for all I know. No doubt he thought the market-girl had a look of his former sweetheart, and he threw her a sovereign, as a kind of little salve to his conscience," contemptuously balancing the said coin on her middle finger.
For quite two minutes Dido did not answer. There was not a sound in the room, excepting the lazy flapping of the window blind. At length she said rather reproachfully,—
"Helen, I think if I had once cared for a person, as you certainly did for Mr. Lisle, I could not speak of him so bitterly."
"I am sure you could not! But you are naturally far more amiable than I am, and your illusions have never been shattered. The last two years have hardened me. I seem to stand alone in the world. I have no protector but Helen Denis. I use my natural weapon, my tongue, rather mercilessly sharp, cutting speeches seem to slip out of my mouth unawares, and they hurt no one half as much as they do me, afterwards,—when I am sorry!"
"I never heard you say anything sharp, until that speech about Mr. Lisle. Now that he is in the country, how will you meet him?"
"Certainly not 'in silence and tears,' like the individual in the song; most probably with a smiling allusion to our former delightful acquaintance."