He leapt for joy at her words, and snatching at his sword, which had been left to him, buckled it on.
“You will not need that,” she said.
“I thought that I should not need it in yonder inn, but I did,” he answered. Whereat she laughed, then turned, put her hand upon his shoulder and spoke to him earnestly.
“See, friend,” she whispered, “you want to walk in the fresh air—do you not?—and to learn certain things—and I wish to tell you them. But I dare not do it here, where we may at any moment be surrounded by spies, for these walls have ears indeed. Well, when we walk in that garden, would it be too great a penance for you to put your arm about my waist—you who still need support?”
“No penance at all, I assure you,” answered Peter with something like a smile. For after all he was a man, and young; while the waist of Inez was as pretty as all the rest of her. “But,” he added, “it might be misunderstood.”
“Quite so, I wish it to be misunderstood: not by me, who know that you care nothing for me and would as soon place your arm round that marble column.”
Peter opened his lips to speak, but she stopped him at once.
“Oh! do not waste falsehoods on me, in which of a truth you have no art,” she said with evident irritation. “Why, if you had the money, you would offer to pay me for my nursing, and who knows, I might take it! Understand, you must either do this, seeming to play the lover to me, or we cannot walk together in that garden.”
Peter hesitated a little, guessing a plot, while she bent forward till her lips almost touched his ear and said in a still lower voice:
“And I cannot tell you how, perhaps—I say perhaps—you may come to see the remains of the Dona Margaret, and certain other matters. Ah!” she added after a pause, with a little bitter laugh, “now you will kiss me from one end of the garden to the other, will you not? Foolish man! Doubt no more; take your chance, it may be the last.”