"I know not what you mean, my lord;" she said, blushing more deeply than before.
"I mean," he answered, "that, judging by your look and sudden pause, I think you have just found out that the door of the heart and the mind has been partly opened to the eye of a stranger,--though it is but by a chink,--and I would fain have you not close it against him, with the key of cold formality. In a word, let us go on as if you had not made the discovery, and do not draw back into yourself, as if you were afraid of letting your real nature come abroad lest it should take cold."
Whether she would or not, a smile came upon her lip; and, after a minute's pause, she answered frankly--
"Well, I will not. It is but for a little time that it can take the air."
At that moment the general conversation seemed to drop; and Lord Chartley saw the eye of the abbess turned towards him.
"It is excellent good," he said aloud, "made into a pie; but, I hate pasties of all kinds, if it be but for hiding under a thick crust the good things they contain. Nevertheless, it is excellent good."
"What?" asked the abbess.
"A squirrel," replied Lord Chartley. "Oh, there is nothing like your gay clambering nutcracker, who scrambles about from branch to branch, drinking the dew of heaven, leaping through the free air, and feeding on the topmost fruits, of which he must ever crack the shell to get at the kernel. He is excellent in a pasty, I assure you. Is he not, Hungerford?"
"Exceeding good," answered the knight, from the other side of the table; "but a young pea-fowl is better."
In this sort of conversation passed the time; and Iola, to say sooth, was amused and pleased. She did not, however, forget to show kind attention to the friar on her right; and he, on his part, seemed pleased and interested by her manner towards him. He spoke little, indeed; but all that he did say was powerful and pointed. Iola, however, could not but remark that he eat hardly anything, while the others seemed to enjoy the dainties prepared for them highly; and she pressed him kindly to take more food.