"So I should have thought," he retorted swiftly.
So swiftly that I felt the words as I should have felt a blow. "What do you mean?" I blurted out, halting before him, with my cheek crimson. In vain were all Dymphna's appealing glances, all her signs of distress. "I will have you explain, Master Van Tree, what you mean by that?" I repeated fiercely.
"I mean what I said," he answered, confronting me stubbornly, and shaking off Dymphna's hand. His blue eyes twinkled with rage, his thin beard bristled; he was the color of a turkey-cock's comb. At home we should have thought him a comical little figure; but he did not seem so absurd here. For one thing, he looked spiteful enough for anything; and for another, though I topped him by a head and shoulders, I could not flatter myself that he was afraid of me. On the contrary, I felt that in the presence of his mistress, small and short-sighted as he was, he would have faced a lion without winking.
His courage was not to be put to the proof. I was still glaring at him, seeking some retort which should provoke him beyond endurance, when a hand was laid on my shoulder, and I turned to find that Master Bertie and the Duchess had joined us.
"So here are the truants," the former said pleasantly, speaking in English, and showing no consciousness whatever of the crisis in the middle of which he had come up, though he must have discerned in our defiant attitudes, and in Dymphna's troubled face, that something was wrong. "You know who this is, Master Francis," he continued heartily. "Or have you not been introduced to Master Van Tree, the betrothed of our host's daughter?"
"Mistress Dymphna has done me that honor," I said stiffly, recovering myself in appearance, while at heart sore and angry with everybody. "But I fear the Dutch gentleman has not thanked her for the introduction, since he learned that my grandmother was Spanish."
"Your grandmother, do you mean?" cried the Duchess, much astonished.
"Yes, madam."
"Well, to be sure!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and appealing whimsically to the others. "This boy is full of starts and surprises. You never know what he will produce next. The other day it was a warrant! To-day it is a grandmother, and a temper!"
I could not be angry with her; and perhaps I was not sorry now that my quarrel with the young Dutchman had stopped where it had. I affected, as well as I could, to join in the laugh at my expense, and took advantage of the arrival of our host--who at this moment came up the slope from the landing-place, his hands outstretched and a smile of greeting on his kindly face--to slip away unnoticed, and make amends to my humor by switching off the heads of the withes by the river.