Hamilton, momentarily pressed back by the thrusting forward of the crowd, saw that ebullition, and frowned and wondered a little over such a grossièreté in his cousin; but she had the thing on again before he could reach her to remonstrate; and, indeed, he never had the chance to. For all of a sudden he found himself witness of an odd scene. Attracted, it seemed, by the little acclaiming voice, the performer, who was seated not ten yards away, got suddenly to his feet, and, after standing staring a minute, came striding across the grass towards the spot whence the demonstration had issued. Those about the lady may have thought that he was bent on some graceful acknowledgment to her of an approval so spontaneous and so unusual; but, whatever the attention he designed, she did not wait to receive it. As if seized with a sudden panic over the publicity she had called down upon herself, she whipped round, and, taking advantage of an opening in the crowd, slipped through it, to a roar of laughter, and was gone in an instant. So quick had she been, that Hamilton, taken by surprise, and hemmed in as he was, could not extricate himself from his position in time to mark the direction of her flight; but, once clear of the press, he stood completely baffled and cursing his evil luck.
And in the meantime green-bow was making good her escape; she ran as if some spectre were at her heels. Across the thronged grass, in and out between the trees, heedless of the attention she attracted, making instinctively for the outer glooms, onward she sped, and never paused until the covert of green shadows coming thickly about her gave her comfort and reassurance of an asylum reached at last. And then she stopped, panting and dishevelled, but with a little inclination, nevertheless, to some hysterical giggling.
“O, mussey me!” she whispered, as she fought for breath: “O, mussey me!” And then she looked hurriedly about her. She was still so near the fringe of the thickets as to have a clear view of the lighted swards she had left. Not safe from detection yet, she must penetrate deeper into the wilderness, if she hoped to baffle pursuit. Away from her ran a little glow-worm track, dim but discernible, and threaded with lamps, always attenuating, until they seemed to cease altogether in the leafy depths. She followed it, and found it to conduct her deep into an open space among the trees, about which was hung a slender coronal of lamps, and in whose midmost stood a rustic arbour, “for whispering lovers made,” but at the moment, it seemed, unoccupied. And here she stopped, to recover her breath and her self-possession, and, with a laugh, began to preen her tumbled plumes like a bird escaped from the fowler.
“I never did—there, never!” she said aloud, and instantly looked up with a start. A masked lady, with a green bow at her bosom, had come silently, it seemed, from the direction of the bower, and was standing regarding her with stony eyes. This was poor Kate, indeed, whom accident had precipitated upon the same refuge.
Moll, after that first little shock, continued her preening unperturbed.
“You fair took my breath away,” she said, “coming on me that fashion like a ghost.”
Kate’s head was bent forward; her dove-like eyes glared.
“Who are you?” she said, scarce audibly. “How dare you thrust yourself upon me like this?”
“Highty-tighty!” said Moll, still comfortably busy. “I might ask that of you.”
“Of me!” cried Kate desperately. “I think I hardly know myself”—for indeed the other had taken pains to duplicate her in many particulars, both dress and voice. “What are you doing here? But I understand the cunning infamy of it all at last. It was to throw dust in the eyes of scandal by feigning ’twas his own wife he came to meet.”