She sat cooling her face with the turkey-wing fan and watching Nick's contre-dancing—his own candle-cast shadow on the wall dancing vis-à-vis—and she laughed and laughed, a-fanning there, like a child delighted by the antics of two older brothers, while Nick whirled on moccasined feet in his mad career, and I fifed windily to time his gambolading.
Then we played country games, but she would not kiss us as forfeit, defending her lips and vowing that no man should ever again take that toll of her.
Which contented me, though I remonstrated; and I was glad that Nick should not cheapen her lips though it cost me the same privilege. For we played "Swallow! Swallow!" and I guessed correctly how many apple pips she held in her hand when she sang:
"Who can count the swallow's eggs?
Try it, Master Nimble-legs!
Climb and find a swallow's nest,
Count the eggs beneath her breast,
Take an egg and leave the rest
And kiss the maid you love the best!"
But it was her hand only we might kiss, and but one finger at that—the smallest—for, says she, "John Drogue hath said it, and I am mistress of Summer House! What I choose to give—or forgive—is of my proper choice.... And I do not choose to be kissed by any man whether he wears silk puce or deer-skin shirt!"
But the devil prompted me to remember Steve Watts, and my countenance changed.
"Do you bar regimentals?" I asked, forcing a wry smile.
She knew what was in my mind, for jealousy grinned at her out of my every feature; and she came toward me and laid her light hand upon my arm.
"Or red coat or blue, my lord," she said, her smile fading to a glimmer, "men have had of me my last complaisance. Are you not content? You taught me, sir."
"If he taught you that a kiss is folly, he taught you more folly than is in a thousand kisses!" cries Nick. "Why," said he, turning on me, "you pitiful, sober-faced, broad-brimmed spoil-sport!" says he, "what are lips made for, you meddlesome ass, and be damned to you!"