"I'm thinking that I'd still go too," he said.
"But if you didn't know?" She asked the question with a curious vehemence. Her instinct told her that, however he might profess to trifle, here at least was a man.
"That wouldn't happen," he said, with conviction, "if I were the lion."
The music was quickening to the finale, and she felt the strong arm grow tense about her.
"Come!" he said. "We will go into the garden."
She went with him because it seemed that she must, but deep in her heart there lurked a certain misgiving. There was an almost arrogant air of power about this man. She wondered what Sir Roland would say if he knew, and comforted herself almost immediately with the reflection that he never could know. He had gone to Scotland, and she did not expect him back for several weeks.
So she turned aside with this stranger, and passed out upon his arm into the dusk of the soft spring night.
"You know these gardens well?" he questioned.
She came out of her meditations.
"Not really well. Lady Blythebury and I are friends, but we do not visit very often."