Wat watched her without speaking as she moved nimbly and with a certain deft, defiant ease about the sprucely painted kitchen.
"Do you believe in love? I don't!" she said, unexpectedly, turning the fish out on a platter and lifting the pan from the fire to prepare it for the bacon which Wat had been holding all the time in readiness for his companion.
"Yes, I do believe in love," said Wat, soberly, as though he had been repeating the Apostles' Creed. He thought of the little tight curls crisping so heart-breakingly about the ears of his love, and also of the grave which had been dug so deep under the sand-hills of Lis. There was no question. He believed with all his heart in love.
The girl darted a swiftly inquiring glance at him. But her suspicions were allayed completely by Wat's downcast and abstracted gaze. He was not thinking at all of her. She gave a sigh, half of relief and half of disappointment.
"Oh yes," she returned, quickly, "fathers and mothers, godfathers and godmothers, tutors and governors—that sort of love. But do you believe in love really—the love they sing about in catches, and which the lads prate of when they come awooing?"
Wat nodded his head still more soberly. "I believe in true love," he said.
"Oh, then, I pray you, tell me all about her!" cried Mehitabel Smith, at once laying down the fork with which she had been turning the bacon, and sitting down to look at Wat with a sudden increase of interest.
Scarlett came in a moment after and sniffed, with his nose in the air; then he walked to the pan in which the bacon was skirling.
"It seems to me that the victual is in danger of burning," he said. "I think next time it were wiser for the Gray Badger to fry the pan, and for those that desire to talk—ah! of high-treason—to go and fetch the water."
Mehitabel started up and began turning the bacon quickly.