"Bless you all the days of your life, sir, and your good, pretty lady!" he cackled.
That's the third time I've been taken for Sir Lionel's wife. The other times I didn't care, but this time, though I laughed, it was a put on laugh, because of those dim questionings about myself floating in the background of my mind.
The descendant of poachers knew the forest, as he said, "with his eyes shut." He limped before us for nearly half a mile, along what he called a "walk"—a New Forest word—and then abandoned us to our fate, after describing the profile of each important tree which we must pass, and pointing out a few stars as guides. Then we bade each other good-bye for ever. He went back to gloat over his gold piece, and Sir Lionel and I went on together.
Somehow, we fell to talking of our favourite virtues, and without thinking, I said, "My mother's is gratitude."
"Gratitude," he repeated, as if in surprise, but he didn't seem to notice that I'd used the present tense. To make him forget my slip, I hurried on to say I thought mine was courage, in a man, anyhow. What was his, in a woman?
"Truth," he answered, with an instant's hesitation.
Luckily he couldn't see me blush in the dark. But the real Audrie was always decently truthful, wasn't she? It's only this Ellaline-Audrie that isn't free to be true.
"Only in women?" I asked, uncomfortably.
"Truth goes without saying in men—the sort of men one knows," said he.
"Don't you think women love the truth as much as men?" I persisted.