Saying this she fell silent for a space, and when she spoke again she was become by some subtle transmutation my trusting little maid of the by-gone halcyon-time.
"Do you remember how you used to make a comrade of me in the old days, Monsieur John, telling me things my elder brother might have told me, had I had one?"
I said I remembered; that I was not likely to forget.
"Are you strong enough to stand in that elder brother's place again to-night?"
"Try me and see, dear lady."
"Not whilst you say 'dear lady,'" she pouted. "'Twas 'Margery' and 'Monsieur John' a year agone."
"Have it as you will; I will even call you 'Madge' if it pleases you better."
"No," she said; "that is Dick's name for me; and—and it is of Dick that I would speak. You love him well, do you not, Monsieur John?"
I said I could never make her, or any woman, fully understand the bond there was between us.
"Truly?" There was the merest flavor of playful sarcasm in the uptilt of the word, but it was gone when she went on.