'I am setting out for Garth to-morrow, with or without escort. That is quite decided. Look on it as a fact, Captain Beckenham,' she added with a fleeting smile, 'and not as a proposition.'
The young man watched the mouth droop at the corners again.
'I will come,' he said suddenly. ''Twill mean disgr——' He stopped short.
Marion gave him an indulgent glance. 'I would not allow my brother or my father to imperil an already tender reputation, sir,'—she smiled again—'by disobeying royal commands. The same protecting watchfulness I must apply to yourself. To withhold it would be an ill return for the services you have rendered my aunt. Take that as final, like the fact of my going.' The gentle tone of her voice and the raillery of her smile eased the straightness of her speech.
'How she has suddenly become grown-up,' mused Beckenham, for once tongue-tied. ''Tis not the same frightened child I found in the coach that first night. What a villainous ill fortune that I should be thus tied to Her Majesty's apron!' Then striving to put the personal part of the question out of his mind, he bent his thoughts to the problem of the lady's service. 'I have it!' He jumped up, speaking with a boyish eagerness that stood him better in Marion's favour than all his courtly airs. 'There's my servant, Tony. May I not lend you my servant, Mistress Marion? He's a brave lad and a tough soldier—worth three others, any day, though I myself say it.'
Marion felt a relief she did not show.
'If the servant be like his master, Captain Beckenham,' she said demurely, 'I am sure he will be worth—three, did you say?—or was it four?'
Beckenham laughed outright, then sobered again. 'There's Grammont, too,' he said. 'I had forgotten him.'
'Lord Grammont? No, sir. I do not like Lord Grammont,' said Marion bluntly.
Mr. Beckenham's head swam a little, but he made no comment on the obvious comparison. 'Grammont's a good fellow,' was his reply.