"I don't care! I intend to be a Jacobite if you are one!"
"Eh, well," said I, "Frank Audaine is not the man to coerce his wife in a political matter. Nevertheless, I know of a certain Jacobite who is not unlikely to have a bad time of it if by any chance Lord Humphrey recognized him to-night. Nay, Miss, you may live to be a widow yet."
"But he didn't recognize you. And if he did"—she snapped her fingers,—"why, we'll fight him again, you and I. Won't we, my dear? For he stole our secret, you know. And he stole me, too. Very pretty behavior, wasn't it?" And here Miss, Allonby stamped the tiniest, the most infinitesimal of red-heeled slippers.
"The rogue he didna keep me lang,
To budge we made him fain again—
"that's you, Frank, and your great, long sword. And now:
"We'll hang him high, upon a tree,
And King Frank shall hae his ain again!"
Afterward my adored Dorothy jumped from the footstool, and came toward me, lifting up the crimson trifle that she calls her mouth, "So take your own, my king," she breathed, with a wonderful gesture of surrender.
And a gentleman could do no less.