This remark certainly had the effect of throwing the holder of the fortress off her guard. It swept away the tribulation from her brow. After all, the case might not be so serious as she had thought, and jubilantly she welcomed the respite, for she had no wish to add a humiliation to the wrong which fate had decreed she should work upon him. She breathed a sigh of relief and said:
“What guise? I’m afraid I do not understand.”
“You see, hitherto we have been shielded by a pass. Its wording was such that little inquiry was made about either of us. Now, for the first time we have no protection, and what we say to those who accost us must prove our safeguard. I shall be asked who you are. I told your brother that I would treat you as if you were my own sister, but I cannot call you my sister at Oxford.”
“Why not.”
“For one reason, because you go to meet friends who know that I am not your brother, and if inquiry is made we are at a disadvantage.”
“True, true! I had forgotten.”
“Another reason is that if we claimed such relationship no one would believe us, for your hair is as black as the raven’s wing, and mine is like the yellow corn.”
For the first time that day the girl laughed outright and lifted her eyes to the locks that so well became him. The simile of Samson again flashed upon her and checked her mirth, but she put the thought resolutely away from her. Armstrong laughed also, well pleased with his progress.
“I had not thought of that,” she said.
“But I thought of it, and also of a way to circumvent it. If they ask who the lady is, I shall tell them she is my betrothed.”