"'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried.
"You're poetical, ma'am."
"I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith,
I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce."
"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?"
"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?"
"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows why she runs after me."
"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless maid indeed which runs after a man"—she made him a curtsy. "But what is the man who runs away from a maid?"
Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled.
"I allow you the privileges of a gentleman, Mr. Boyce."
"Gentleman? Oh Lud, no, ma'am. I am an upper servant. Rather better than the butler. Not so good as the steward."