He was flinging off his hat, and loosening his doublet to cool himself, and he gave her good-morning airily as if yesterday there had not been an almost tragic scene between them. She found his light-hearted and really tactful manner highly offensive, and she bridled under it.
“What may be your pleasure, Colonel?” she demanded forbiddingly.
“A draught of ale if I deserve your charity,” quoth he. “I am parched as an African desert. Phew! The heat!” And he flung himself down on the window-seat to get what air he could.
She went off in silence, and returned with a tankard, which she placed upon the table before him. Thirstily he set it to his lips, and as its cool refreshment began to soothe his throat, he thanked Heaven that in a world of much evil there was still so good a thing as ale.
Silently she watched him, frowning. As he paused at last in the enjoyment of his draught, she spoke.
“Ye’ll have made your plans to leave my house to-day as we settled it last night?” said she between question and assertion.
He nodded, pursing his lips a little. “I’ll remove myself to the Bird in Hand across the Yard this afternoon,” said he.
“The Bird in Hand!” A slight upward inflection of her voice marked her disdain of that hostelry, which, indeed, was but a poor sort of tavern. “Faith, it will go well with your brave coat. Ah, but that’s no affair of mine. So that ye go, I am content.”
There was something portentous in her utterance. She came forward to the table, and leaned heavily forward upon it. Her expression and attitude were calculated to leave him in no doubt that this woman, who had been so tender to him hitherto, was now his declared enemy. “My house,” she said, “is a reputable house, and I mean to keep it so. I want no traitors here, no gallows’ birds and the like.”