Again the elder brother grew quick, alert. It seemed he was ready to provoke a second fight. “It was Nance’s glove,” he said quietly. “You said you meant to claim it, and I said not. I say it still.”
“There, there, old lad!” laughed Maurice, patting him lightly on the shoulder. “You shall have the glove. She’d rather give it to you than to any man in Lancashire. I said as much to Will Underwood just now, and he didn’t relish it.”
“Rather give it me?” echoed the other, with entire simplicity. “I can do nothing that a woman asks, Maurice.”
A sudden dizziness crossed his eagerness. He could not keep the path, until Maurice steadied him.
“You can hit devilish hard,” said the younger dryly.
The three of them went down the moor, counting the furlongs miles. And again the brothers met on equal terms; for each was bruised and hungry, and body-sickness, if it strike deep enough, is apt to bring wayfarers to one common level.
Nance and Will Underwood had reached the lower lands by now, and she turned to him at the gate of Demaine House with some reluctance.
“You will let my father thank you for your escort?” she asked, stroking her mare’s neck.
“I’ll come in,” he answered, with the rollicking assurance that endeared him to the hard riders of the county—“if only for an hour more with you.” He leaned across and touched her bridle-hand. “Nance, you’ve treated me all amiss these last days. You never give me a word apart, and there’s so much——”
“I’m tired and cold,” she broke in, wayward and sleety as this moorland that had cradled her. “You may spare me—what shall I say?—the flattery that Mr. Underwood gives every woman, when other women are not there to hear.”