"Only your good-will," he replied, with a smile that showed beautiful teeth.
She flashed a scornful glance in return.
"Good will!" she repeated. "That is something we have not in our power to give one who wears a coat the color of yours." She spoke defiantly, looking the young man squarely in the face.
"Such words, uttered by such lips, almost make me coward enough to regret the color," he said good-naturedly, and as though determined not to take offence.
With this he took a step or two inside the cave; and small 'Bitha, dismayed at the near approach of the scarlet-clad form, clung tightly to Dorothy's gown, pressing her face into its folds.
"Speak him fair, Mary," Dorothy whispered, apprehending possible danger from her friend's want of discretion.
But Mary did not hear, or else she did not care to heed, for she said: "Neither your raiment, nor aught that concerns you, can matter to us. This is our property you are trespassing upon; and I bid you begone, this moment."
"You are surely lacking in courtesy, mistress," he replied, still smilingly.
The words were addressed to Mary, but his glowing eyes were fixed upon Dorothy, who was still standing with her arms about 'Bitha. The color was coming and going in her cheeks, and something in the big eyes told him that a smile was not far away.
"We have no courtesy for British soldiers," was Mary's haughty answer to his imputation; and there was an angry tapping of her foot upon the shell floor.