"Oh, Madam, since you are so cruel,
And that you do scorn me so,
If I may not be your lover,
Madam, will you let me go?"
And in the high, prim voice, she answered herself,
"Oh no, John, no, John, no!"
A faint smile hovered near Mark's flushed face. He leaned towards his mother as she sang, and took down his hands so that he could see her better. Marise noted instantly, with a silent exclamation of relief that the red angry mark was quite outside the eye-socket, harmless on the bone at one side. Much ado about nothing as usual with the children. Why did she get so frightened each time? Another one of Mark's hairbreadth escapes.
She reached for the cold wet compress and went on, singing loudly and boldly, with a facetious wag of her head, (how tired she was of all this manoeuvering!),
"Then I will stay with you forever
If you will not be unkind."
She applied the cold compress on the hurt spot and put out her hand for the bandage-roll, singing with an ostentatiously humorous accent and thinking with exasperation how all this was delaying her in the thousand things to do in the house,
"Madam, I have vowed to love you;
Would you have me change my mind?"
She wound the bandage around and around the little boy's head, so that it held the compress in place, singing in the high, sweet voice,
"Oh no, John, no, John, NO."