"I expressed myself clumsily, I own," he retorted a little impatiently, "nothing was further from my thoughts than to force my company upon you. But," he added whimsically, "meseems that--since we are destined to spend so much of our future together--we might make an early start at mutual understanding."
"And you thought that conversation in a ballroom would be a good start for the desirable purpose?" she asked.
"Why not?"
"As you say: why not?" she replied lightly, "there is so little that we can say to one another that it can just as well be said in a ballroom. We know so little of one another at present--and so long as my looks have not displeased you..."
"Your beauty, señorita, has no doubt been vaunted by more able lips than mine: I acknowledge it gratefully and without stint as an additional gift of God."
"Additional?" she asked with a slight raising of her brows.
"Aye! additional!" he replied, "because my first glance of you told me plainly that you are endowed with all the most perfect attributes of womanhood. Good women," he added quaintly, "are so often plain and beautiful women so often unpleasant, that to find in one's future wife goodness allied to beauty is proof that one of singularly blessed."
"Which compliment, Messire, would be more acceptable if I felt that it was sincere. Your praise of my looks is flattering; as to my goodness, you have no proof of it."
"Nay! there you wrong yourself, señorita. Are you not marrying me entirely against your will, and because you desire to be obedient to your father and to the Duke of Alva? Are you not marrying me out of loyalty to your King, to your country, and to your church? A woman who is as loyal and submissive as that, will be loyal to her husband too."
"This will I strive to be, Messire," rejoined Lenora, who either did not or would not perceive the slight tone of good-humoured mockery which lurked in Mark van Rycke's amiable speech. "I will strive to be loyal to you, since my father and the King himself, it seems, have desired that I should be your wife."