"Who loves me, follows me!" she cried, a queer exultation in her tone—"across the water!"
They pounced on the kerchief, like dogs let loose from the leash—every man but the astonished Colonel. For an instant the place was a pandemonium, a Babel. In a twinkling the kerchief was torn, amid cries of the wildest enthusiasm, into as many fragments as there were men round the table.
"All!—all!" she cried, still standing erect, and hounding them on with the magic of her voice, while her beautiful face blazed with excitement. "All—but you?"—with which, for the briefest space, she turned to Colonel John. Her eyes met his. They asked him a defiant question: they challenged the answer.
"I do not understand," he replied, taken by surprise. But indeed he did understand only too well. "Is it a game?"
The men were pinning the white shreds on their coats above their hearts—even her brother, obedient for once. But at that word they turned as one man to him, turned flushed, frowning faces and passionate eyes on him. But Flavia was before them; excitement had carried her farther than she had meant to go, yet prudence had not quite left her. "Yes, a game!" she cried, laughing, a note too high. "Don't you know the Lady's Kerchief?"
"No," he said soberly; he was even a little out of countenance.
"Then no more of it," Uncle Ulick cried, interposing, with a ring of authority in his voice. "For my part, I'm for bed. Bed! We're all children, bedad, and as fond of a frolic! And I'm thinking I'm the worst. The lights, Darby, the lights, and pleasant dreams to you! After all—
The spoke that is to-day on top,
To-morrow's on the ground.
Sure, and I'll swear that's true!"