Fair, foolish girl! she thought to stare me down—I, who had eyed unmoved a thousand sights of dread and wonder—I, who had mocked the stare of cruel tyrants and faced unblanching the worst that heaven or hell could work—what! was I to be out of countenance under the feeble battery of such gentle orbs as those? ’Twas boldly conceived, but it would not do, and in a moment she felt it, and her eyes fell from mine, the color rushed again from brow to chin, she let her flowered skirt fall from her grip, she turned away for a moment, and there and then burst out a-crying behind her hands as though the world were quite inside out.
Now, to stand the fair open assault of her eyes was one thing, but such sap as this was more than my resolution could abide. “You do mistake me, maid, indeed,” I cried. “I swear there is no deed of courtesy or good-will in all the world I would not do for you.”
“Why, then, Sir, do the least and easiest of all—stand from that gap and let me pass.”
“If you insist upon it, even that I must submit to. There!—there is your way free and unhampered!” and I stood back and left the passage clear—“and yet, before you go, fair lady, let me crave of your courtesy one question or two, such as civility might ask, and courtesy very reasonably answer.”
Now that maid had dried her tears, and had been stealing some sundry glances at me under the fringe of her wet lashes while we spoke, and as a result she did not seem quite so wishful to be gone as she had been. She eyed the free gap in the tall wall of yew and holly, and then, demurely, me. The pretty corners of her mouth began to unbend, and while her fingers played among her ribbons, and the color came and went under her clear country skin, feminine curiosity got the better of timidity, and she hesitated.
“Oh!” she murmured, “if it were a civil question civilly asked, I could wait for that. What can I tell you?”
“First then, are you of true material substance, not vagrant and spiritual, but, as you certainly look, a healthy, plain planed mortal?”
“Had I been else, Sir,” the damsel answered, with a smile, “I had found a short way out of the trap you saw fit to hold me in.”
“That is true, no doubt, and I accept this initial answer with due thanks. I had not asked it, but lodging so long amid shadows sets my prejudice against the truth, even of the sweetest substance.”
“And next, Sir?”