I tried to withdraw my hand from hers, but being weak she masterfully kept it, so that the tears sprang to my eyes for very helplessness and anger.
'You have played with me and deceived me, Kate Allison,' I cried, as soon as I could command my voice; 'you have forgotten the old days and all that we were to one another.'
Nevertheless Kate Allison never winced but let me say my say out. And by this I knew that the old days were gone indeed. She was mightily set in her mind.
'Launce,' she said gently, 'Launce, dear sweetheart, hearken—I am fond of you. No lass in Carrick but would like you for a lad and a lover, even for your very feults, which are what all may see.'
What she might have meant I have even yet no idea.
'Ye are perfect for a lad that comes courting, and I liked ye fine—ay, and like ye yet. But I saw lang syne that the lads that court best are not the men that marry best.'
'Women are all traitors!' said I, with indignation tingling through my body; 'they kiss and they forget. And then in a trice they go kiss another—'
'Ay,' replied Kate Allison, with a little more gravity, 'and I mean to have a short word with you on that very thing.'
She paused for a moment, and looked staidly and thoughtfully out of the window. I believed at nineteen that I wholly understood all women. But now I know that when I am twice that and more, the simplest seeming of them will be able to wrap me in her daidly-apron, and sell me in the market for green cabbage.
'Listen, Launce, my dear,' she said. 'I was but a Grieve's lass, and not unbonny of my face, so you courted me. You longed after kissing, being a heartsome lad with a way with you and a glint in your e'e. And so you kissed me, and in my youth and folly I said ye not nay. But you went over the hill to the Boreland and you kissed Grace, and you kissed the lass at the house of the Red Moss—and you thought that I would never know it. And more, you expected that none else should ever come near to kiss me. Ay, and would have waxed mightily indignant and flashed a brave sword had any dared, for that is the excellent way of the lads that come courting—but not at all the way of the men that wise women marry.'