“How dear and good of him!” She spoke earnestly, and her face was suffused with a warm light. There was no doubt about her meaning what she said.
“It was,” John answered, unsteadily. “He knew how great was my need of a few moments' companionableness with—with——”
“No,” she interrupted. “I meant dear and good to me, because I think he was thinking of me, and it was for my sake he wanted us to meet.”
It would have been hard to convince a woman, if she had overheard this speech, that Miss Sherwood's humility was not the calculated affectation of a coquette. Sometimes a man's unsuspicion is wiser, and Harkless knew that she was not flirting with him. In addition, he was not a fatuous man; he did not extend the implication of her words nearly so far as she would have had him.
“But I had met you,” said he, “long ago.”
“What!” she cried, and her eyes danced. “You actually remember?”
“Yes; do you?” he answered. “I stood in Jones's field and heard you singing, and I remembered. It was a long time since I had heard you sing:
“'I was a ruffler of Flanders,
And fought for a florin's hire.
You were the dame of my captain
And sang to my heart's desire.'
“But that is the balladist's notion. The truth is that you were a lady at the Court of Clovis, and I was a heathen captive. I heard you sing a Christian hymn—and asked for baptism.” By a great effort he managed to look as if he did not mean it.
But she did not seem over-pleased with his fancy, for, the surprise fading from her face, “Oh, that was the way you remembered!” she said.