Confronted, never stirring, their eyes met; and in the cold, concentrated fury which possessed her she set her small teeth and stared at him, rigid, menacing, terrible in her outraged pride.
After a while he stirred; a quiver twitched his set features.
"Nevertheless—" he said, partly to himself. Then, drawing a long breath, he turned, unhooked his sabre from a nail where it hung, buckled his belt, picked up the lance which stood slanting across a chair, shook out the scarlet, swallow-tailed pennon, and walked slowly toward the door—and met Letty coming in.
"Mrs. Paige," she said, "we couldn't imagine what had become of you—" and glancing inquiringly at Berkley, started, and uttered a curious little cry:
"You!"
"Yes," he said, smiling through his own astonishment.
"Oh!" she cried with a happy catch in her voice, and held out both hands to him; and he laid aside his lance and took them, laughing down into the velvet eyes. And he saw the gray garb of Sainte Ursula that she wore, saw the scarlet heart on her breast, and laughed again—a kindly, generous, warm-hearted laugh; but there was a little harmless malice glimmering in his eyes.
"Wonderful—wonderful, Miss Lynden"—he had never before called her
Miss Lynden—"I am humbly overcome in the presence of Holy Sainte
Ursula embodied in you. How on earth did old Benton ever permit
you to escape? He wrote me most enthusiastically about you before
I—ahem—left town."
"Why didn't you let me know where you were going?" asked Letty with a reproachful simplicity that concentrated Ailsa's amazed attention on her, for she had been looking scornfully at Berkley.
"Why—you are very kind, Miss Lynden, but I, myself, didn't know where I was going."