At this she laughed, something of the old elfin laughter which I had heard on the wet moors.
"A compliment!" she cried, "To be mixed up eternally with the weights of tobacco and the prices of Flemish lace. You are growing a very pretty courtier, sir."
"I am no courtier," I said. "I think brave things of you, though I have not the words to fit them. But one thing I will say to you. Since ever you sang to the boy that once was me your spell has been on my soul. And when I saw you again three months back that spell was changed from the whim of youth to what men call love. Oh, I know well there is no hope for me. I am not fit to tie your shoe-latch. But you have made a fire in my cold life, and you will pardon me if I dare warm my hands. The sun is brighter because of you, and the flowers fairer, and the birds' song sweeter. Grant me this little boon, that I may think of you. Have no fears that I will pester you with attentions. No priest ever served his goddess with a remoter reverence than mine for you."
She stopped in an alley of roses and looked me in the face. In the dusk
I could not see her eyes.
"Fine words," she said. "Yet I hear that you have been wrangling over me with Mr. Charles Grey, and exchanging pistol shots. Is that your reverence?"
In a sentence I told her the truth. "They forced my back to the wall," I said, "and there was no other way. I have never uttered your name to a living soul."
Was it my fancy that when she spoke again there was a faint accent of disappointment?
"You are an uncomfortable being, Mr. Garvald. It seems you are predestined to keep Virginia from sloth. For myself I am for the roses and the old quiet ways."
She plucked two flowers, one white and one of deepest crimson.
"I pardon you," she said, "and for token I will give you a rose. It is red, for that is your turbulent colour. The white flower of peace shall be mine."