“‘You are welcome to that,’ I said, and I slipped off my horse, to humour him, and even as I slipped off I knew who he was, for although many have red brooches, and many brown beards turning grey, few have both together; but I said nothing. And there—will you believe it?—we danced under the beech-trees like Phyllis and Corydon, or whoever they are that Sidney is always prating of; or like two fools, I would sooner say. Then when we had done, I made him a curtsey.
“‘Now you must help me up,’ said I, and he mounted me without a word, for he was a stoutish gallant and somewhat out of breath. And then what did the fool do but try to kiss me, and as he lifted his arm I snatched the brooch and put spur to my horse, and as we went up the bank I screamed at him, ‘Claude, you fool, go home to your wife and take shame to yourself.’ And when I was near the road I looked back, and he still stood there all agape.”
“And what was his name?” asked Anthony.
“Nay, nay, I have mocked him enough. And I know four Claudes, so you need not try to guess.”
When supper was over, Mr. Buxton and Mary walked up and down the south path of the garden between the yews, while the other two sat just outside the hall window on a seat placed on the tiled terrace that ran round the house.
“How I have longed for you to come, Mistress Mary,” he said, “and counsel me of the matter we wrote about. Tell me what to do.”
Mary looked meditatively out to the strip of moon that was rising out to the east in the June sky. Then she looked tenderly at her friend.
“I hate to pain you,” she said, “but cannot you see that it is impossible? I may be wrong; but I think her heart is so given to our Saviour that there is no love of that sort left.”
“Ah, how can you say that?” he cried; “the love of the Saviour does not hinder earthly love; it purifies and transfigures it.”