“My lord?”
“Pomona. ’Tis a marvelous fine name, and marvelous fitting to a nymph of the orchard. Pomona!”
“Indeed,” she answered him, in her grave way, “Sue or Pattie would better become me. But my mother was book-learned, sir, and town-bred, and had her fancies. She sat much in the orchard the spring that I was born.”
“Ay,” he mused. “So thy mother was book-learned and fanciful!” Then briskly he asked her: “Wouldst thou not like to know my name, Pomona? Unless, indeed, you know it already?”
She shook her head.
“Why, what a woman are you! In spite of apples, no daughter of Eve at all?”
She still shook her head, and, smiling faintly, “To me it could make no difference,” she said.
“Well, now you shall know,” he said, “and take it to your maiden dreams. I am Rupert, Earl of Blantyre.”
“What,” she cried, quickly, “the——” she broke off and hesitated. “The great Earl of Blantyre,” she pursued, then, dropping her eyes: “The king’s friend!”
His laugh rang out somewhat harsh.