“Flout him!” laughed the girl. “Flout my cousin Lindley!” Then her voice grew suddenly serious. Turning, she put both hands caressingly on her father’s shoulders. “Let us pray Heaven, rather, that there be no flouting on either side!” She bent her head slightly and kissed him on either cheek. Then her serious mood fled as quickly as it had come. “Though I’m in no way bound to give my reason for choosing a wayside inn for this meeting with my cousin—you’ll admit, sir, that I’m not bound so to do? Well, I’ve no objection to telling you that I meet him here so that, if I like him not, I can leave him on the instant. If I had him come to my own house, if I met him anywhere save on the common ground of a public place, and liked him not, or saw that he liked me not at all—why, there would be certain courtesies due from a lady to a gentleman, and I choose not to be held by those. And—and I may have had another reason for choosing The Jolly Grig, and then—I may not. But I think, sir, that the innkeeper solicits your attention.”
Marmaduke Bass had, for several moments, been hovering officiously in the wake of Master James Ogilvie.
“It’s many a day since I’ve seen your honor at The Jolly Grig,” murmured Marmaduke, with a certain obsequious familiarity that he reserved for old and well-known patrons.
“Ay, I’ve had little time for jollity this many a year,” agreed Master Ogilvie, with a ponderous wink behind his daughter’s back. “My hands and my head have been full.”
Judith’s small nose was still sniffing the air while she moved lightly about the long, dark room.
“I—I like not the smell of your place, Master—Master——”
“’Tis Marmaduke Bass, my love,” interrupted her father.
“Ah, yes,” she assented. “I’d forgotten for the moment. This hearth has an air of comfort, though, and as for this chair——” She had seated herself in the chair that fronted Marmaduke’s settle. “Ah, Master Bass, I should say that your chair would induce sleep.” She yawned luxuriously, and her feet, in their dainty riding boots, were stretched over far in front of her for a well-brought-up damsel. But it must not be forgotten that Mistress Judith Ogilvie had been brought up quite apart from other girls, quite without a woman’s care. “If I were only a man, now,” she continued, “I’d call for a glass of—what would I ask for, Master Bass? Would it be Geldino’s sherris or Canary Malmsey, or would I have to content myself with a royal port lately brought from France?” She sprang to her feet, laughing gayly, while old Marmaduke scratched his head, wondering of what her words reminded him. She touched his shoulder lightly and added: “If my father calls for wine, later—later, mind you, we’ll have the sherris, Geldino’s own.”
Her words and Marmaduke’s efforts to collect his thoughts were interrupted here by the clatter of horse’s hoofs in the court. The next instant Lindley was entering the room.
“I’m not late?” he cried. “Surely, I’m not late?”