"And why did you juggle with it?"
"Some pride in my patronymic and in that very Harvard lineage would not permit me to degrade either by becoming a footman as John Graham."
"And again, then: why are you a footman? You have not answered that question yet. Your purposes in life are admirable, your motives are—beautiful, your success will be brilliant I earnestly hope,—even more, I dare to prophesy; and I shall be proud to know when your name is famous, that I gave you your first flag;"—She laughed—"but why did you become a footman, Hayward?"
She pulled her horse up to wait for his answer. Hayward looked steadily in her eyes, which were regarding him with frank enquiry, until a quickness came to his pulses and a rashness into his heart, and by his gaze her eyes were beaten down and the colour brought to her cheek.
"Why?" Her voice had as much of appeal as of demand.
Hayward caught his breath quickly.
"You have read Ruy Blas, Miss Helen?"
"No," Helen answered. "What has that to do with it?"
Hayward had the same sensation as when in the Venezuelan campaign he had first keyed his nerves for battle at sound of the picket's shots only to have the danger pass. Then the releasing tension had been painful. Here it was grateful. He drew a breath of relief. He was very glad the girl had not read of Ruy Blas,—of the lackey who loved a queen.
"The place of footman was the only position open to me. I applied for another but failed to get it." He ignored the question and through this lie outright, told in words of perfect truth, he made a precipitate retreat. "The service was to be short, and it gave me an opportunity to see at close range something of the man upon whom my hopes so much depend," he added as an afterthought.