“They seem to keep very good wine,” he remarked, after smelling at the demijohn.
“Don’t you see? Can’t you understand?” she said.
“No, not a bit. What’s that thing, do you suppose?” he added, giving the crocodile a kick.
“Oh, me, but men are simple, men are simple!” said Elaine, in despair. “Geoffrey, listen! That wine is my father’s wine, from his own cellar. There is none like it in all England.”
“Then I don’t see why he gave it to a parcel of monks,” replied the young man.
Elaine clasped her hands in hopelessness, gave him a kiss, and became mistress of the situation.
“Now, Geoffrey,” she said, “I will tell you what you and I have really found out.” Then she quickly recalled all the recent events. How her father’s cellar had been broken into; how Mistletoe had been chained to a rock for a week and no dragon had come near her. She bade him remember how just now Father Anselm had opposed every plan for meeting the Dragon, and at last she pointed to the crocodile.
“Ha!” said Geoffrey, after thinking for a space. “Then you mean——”
“Of course I do,” she interrupted. “The Dragon of Wantley is now down-stairs with papa eating dinner, and pretending he never drinks anything stronger than water. What do you say to that, sir?”
“This is a foul thing!” cried the knight. “Here have I been damnably duped. Here——” but speech deserted him. He glared at the crocodile with a bursting countenance, then drove his toe against it with such vigour that it sailed like a foot-ball to the farther end of the hall.