‘But spare a bit of it—one little piece, sir—a scrap of the lace—one bow of the ribbon—the lovely fan—just something!’
But he was as immoveable as Rhadamanthus. ‘No,’ he said, with a stern gaze of his aristocratic eye. ‘It is of no use for you to speak like that. The things are my property. I undertook to gratify you in what you might desire because you had saved my life. To go to a ball, you said. You might much more wisely have said anything else, but no; you said, to go to a ball. Very well—I have taken you to a ball. I have brought you back. The clothes were only the means, and I dispose of them my own way. Have I not a right to?’
‘Yes, sir,’ she said meekly.
He gave the fire a stir, and lace and ribbons, and the twelve flounces, and the embroidery, and all the rest crackled and disappeared. He then put in her hands the butter basket she had brought to take on to her grandmother’s, and accompanied her to the edge of the wood, where it merged in the undulating open country in which her granddame dwelt.
‘Now, Margery,’ he said, ‘here we part. I have performed my contract—at some awkwardness, if I was recognized. But never mind that. How do you feel—sleepy?’
‘Not at all, sir,’ she said.
‘That long nap refreshed you, eh? Now you must make me a promise. That if I require your presence at any time, you will come to me . . . I am a man of more than one mood,’ he went on with sudden solemnity; ‘and I may have desperate need of you again, to deliver me from that darkness as of Death which sometimes encompasses me. Promise it, Margery—promise it; that, no matter what stands in the way, you will come to me if I require you.’
‘I would have if you had not burnt my pretty clothes!’ she pouted.
‘Ah—ungrateful!’
‘Indeed, then, I will promise, sir,’ she said from her heart. ‘Wherever I am, if I have bodily strength I will come to you.’