"Oh, I was astride a horse, plying a sword or what not. It was all easy-going; but for you here——"
"For me there was the bigger venture. You have only one right hand for the spear. I have control of scores. My dear soldiery are pleased to love me—I know not why—and power is sweet. You will believe, sir, that all this is pastime to me."
Yet her voice broke. Tired folk know tired folk when they are climbing the same hill of sadness; and Kit touched her on the arm. "Rough pastime, I should call it," he said, "and you a woman."
She gathered her courage again. Laughter played about her charitable, wide mouth.
"You're in love, Mr. Metcalf—finely in love, I think, with some chit of a girl who may or may not deserve it. There was a reverence in your voice when you spoke of women."
Kit's face was red with confession of his guilt. "There's none else for me," he said.
"Ah, then, I'm disappointed. This zeal last night—it was not for the King, after all. It was because some woman tempted you to do great deeds for her own pretty sake.'
"We've been King's men at Nappa since time began," said Kit stubbornly. "My father has sounded a trumpet from Yoredale down to Oxford. All England knows us stalwart for the King."
Lady Derby allowed herself a moment's happiness. Here was a man who had no shams, no glance forward or behind to see where his loyalty would take him. There was nothing mercantile about him, and, in these muddled times, that was so much to be thankful for.
"Believe me," she said very gently, "I know your breed. Believe me, too, when I say that I am older than you—some of the keen, blue dawn-lights lost to me, but other beauties staying on—and I ask you, when you meet your wide-eyed maid again, to put it to the question."