She tossed her head and would not look at me. "Dick Jennifer is but a boy; suppose this other were a man full-grown."
"Yes?"
"And a soldier."
The sickness in my heart became a fire.
"O Margery! Don't tell me it is this fiend who came just now!"
All in a flash the jesting mood was gone, but that which took its place was strange to me. Tears came; her bosom heaved. And then she would have passed me but I caught her hands and held them fast.
"Margery, one moment: for your own sweet sake, if not for Dick's or mine, have naught to do with this devil's emissary of a man. If you only knew—if I dared tell you—"
But for once, it seemed, I had stretched my privilege beyond the limit. She whipped her hands from my hold and faced me coldly.
"Sir Francis says you are a brave gentleman, Captain Ireton, and though he knows well what you would be about, he has not sent a file of men to put you in arrest. And in return you call him names behind his back. I shall not stay to listen, sir."
With that she passed again behind my chair, and once again I heard her hand upon the latch. But I would say my say.