"I dip my colors," she replied, "only to the long-enduring, not to the valiant alone!"
"A lady of high renown," I mused aloud, while Miss Pat poured the coffee, "a lady of your own name, was once more or less responsible for a little affair that lasted ten years about the walls of a six-gated city."
"I wasn't named for her! No sugar to-night, please, Aunt Pat!"
I stood with her presently by an open window of the parlor, looking out upon the night. Sister Margaret had vanished about her household duties; Miss Pat had taken up a book with the rather obvious intention of leaving us to ourselves. I expected to start at eight for my rendezvous at Red Gate, and my ear was alert to the chiming of the chapel clock. The gardener had begun his evening rounds, and paused in the walk beneath us.
"Don't you think," asked Helen, "that the guard is rather ridiculous?"
"Yes, but it pleases my medieval instincts to imagine that you need defenders. In the absence of a moat the gardener combines in himself all the apparatus of defense. Ijima is his Asiatic ally."
"And you, I suppose, are the grand strategist and field marshal."
"At least that!"
"After this morning I never expected to ask a favor of you; but if, in my humblest tone—"
"Certainly. Anything within reason."