"It is God's fault, then," she responded. "So we have none to blame. But what is to hinder your coming to the Snowdens', there, we can begin afresh."
"Alas! I am for Annapolis in the morning," he said, bending down over her—"and shall be kept there for at least a week."
"Why go?" she whispered.
"I have no alternative: the Governor's summons, I must obey."
"Always the way—duty first."
"You would not have me shirk duty?" he asked.
She saw it was a false step, and beat a quick retreat.
"You know I would not," she said. "Did you forget, I, too, come of those who serve the King."
She was very alluring, in her gown of brocaded lustring, ruby-colored, with white tobine stripes, trimmed with floss, the high-piled hair, the fair face, the dark, expressive eyes, the bowed mouth, the slender neck. And he was not dead to beauty, so near and so yielding. He loosed, suddenly, the little hand, and wound his arm about her waist.