"True," rejoined the Baron, "some of the Royal and Electoral Houses have produced men not easily to be banished from a lady's memory--or her heart."
"Nay," said Arabella, with a careless smile, "my little heart is all too narrow to take in so great a thing as a prince."
Her companion cast a quick glance around the room to see that no one was near, and then replied in a low but emphatic tone, "I hope not--I hope not."
The blood came up into the lady's cheek, and after gazing in his face for an instant, she cast down her eyes again, and remained silent. Several of the dishes were removed, now others put upon the table; and then, as if accidentally, both the landlord and the serving-man quitted the room.
"How strange are the events of life," said the Baron de Mardyke.
"They are indeed," answered the Lady Arabella, "almost as strange as man's own heart."
"Here was I," continued her companion, not appearing to heed her words, "riding on an errand of much importance to visit a fair and noble lady, whom I should have missed seeing till it was too late, had it not been for a shower of rain."
"If you mean me, sir," said the fair girl beside him, "you must have made some mistake in your errand; for I am a being of so little consequence myself that nothing of importance can have reference to me."
"You may in a few weeks be of much more," replied the Baron.
"Nay, heaven forbid!" cried Arabella, resuming the gay and jesting tone which she had laid aside for a moment. "I can conceive no fate more perverse than that which would make me of any consequence at all. I never knew a bird that cared, so that his wings were tied, whether the threads that tied them were golden or hempen. Greatness is a snare from which one never escapes, once having fallen into it.--But, good truth, I am curious who you can be, sir," she continued, stopping him as he was about to speak; "I am shrewd at divining; but yet men take such disguises now-a-days, a poor woman can hardly discover them. Nay, tell me not, tell me not! I love to puzzle out a mystery, and I would fain guess for myself who and what you may be."