“The Lady Rebecca will be glad to see any one who calls himself friend,” replied Rolfe. “May I inquire the name of the guest?”
“Captain John Smith, who knew her in Jamestown.”
Flinging wide the door, Rolfe bade him enter, and turning to Pocahontas said, “Wife, a friend of long ago comes to see you.”
Pocahontas turned from the window, her eyes filled with the outside gloom. At first she could not see the visitor.
“Have I had the misfortune to pass from your memory, madam?” said Captain Smith advancing into the firelight.
A tremulous cry rang through the room “My father! My father!” and covering her face with her hands, she tottered into a chair. A long silence—broken only by the boy prattling to a King Charles spaniel—held Smith and Rolfe spellbound. Finally she raised her head and gazed long on the face of Smith; then coming up to him she said in loving accents, “Pocahontas has her father again, and is his child once more.”
“Nay, Lady Rebecca, I am of too humble a station to presume to be on familiar terms with a princess. You must not call me father, and I am not permitted to call you child.”
“You did promise Powhatan what was yours should be his, and he the like to you; you called him father being in his land a stranger, and by the same reason, so must I do you,” she answered.
“You are well aware of the suspicious jealousy of the King and Queen,” said Smith to Rolfe. “Try to make her understand the situation.”
Rolfe endeavored to explain the rigid decorum of the King’s court to her; besides, for reasons of his own, he was not anxious to have the friendship renewed.