So the poor lad retreated, muttering hot and angry words, all his heart sore within him because of the cruelty of this girl.
But he had not proceeded twenty steps along the corridor, when he heard the door softly open and a low voice whispered, "Sholto! Sholto! I want you, Sholto!"
He bent his brows and strode manfully on as if he had not heard a word.
"Sholto!—dear Sholto! Do not go, I need you."
Against his will he turned, and, seeing the head of Maud Lindesay, her pouting lips and beckoning finger, he went sulkily back.
"Well?" he said, with the stern curtness of a military commander, as he stood before her.
She held the iron lamp in her hand. The wick had fallen aside and was now wasting itself in a broad, unequal yellow flame. The maid of honour looked at it in perplexity, knitting her pretty brows in a mock frown.
"It burned me as I was ordering my hair," she said. "I cannot blow it out. I dare not. Will you—will you blow it out for me, Captain Sholto?"
She spoke with a sweet childlike humility.
And she held the lamp up so that the iron handle was almost touching her soft cheek. There was a dancing challenge in her dark eyes and her lips smiled dangerously red. She could not, of course, have known that the light made her look so beautiful, or she would have been more careful.