“Ah,” he said, recalling Adonis, O’Flariaty’s, appearance, and, as he spoke, a smile of singular sweetness lightened his face. “A Spanish grandee with a touch of the brogue! But I must not decry your noble lord!” he added.
“No lord of mine!” she replied gaily. “My lord must have a velvet robe, not frayed, and a sword not tin, and its most sanguinary purpose must not be to get between his legs and trip him up! Of course, when we act in barns––”
“In barns!”
“Oh, yes, when we can find them to act in!”
She glanced at him half-mockingly.
“I suppose you think of a barn as only a place for a horse.”
The sound of carriage wheels interrupted his reply, and, looking in the direction from whence it came, they observed a coach doubling the curve before the willows and approaching at a rapid pace. It was a handsome and imposing equipage, with dark 39 crimson body and wheels, preserving much of the grace of ancient outline with the utility of modern springs.
As they drew aside to permit it to pass the features of its occupant were seen, who, perceiving the young girl on the road––the shawl, half-fallen from her shoulder revealing the plastic grace of an erect figure––gazed at her with surprise, then thrust his head from the window and bowed with smiling, if somewhat exaggerated, politeness. The next moment carriage and traveler vanished down the road in a cloud of dust, but an alert observer might have noticed an eye at the rear port-hole, as though the person within was supplementing his brief observation from the side with a longer, if diminishing, view from behind.
The countenance of the young girl’s companion retrograded from its new-found favor to a more inexorable cast.
“A friend of yours?” he said, briefly.