'Mistress Fleming,' he whispered ardently, 'give me some token to-night—some slight token of favour. Your eyes look kind to-night. Give me that rose.'
Deborah glanced at the red rose in her breast. 'This rose, Master Sinclair? Nay; not this: there are a thousand others in the garden. Marjory shall bring ye one.'
'I covet this one, Mistress Fleming, warm from your heart. What is it to you? And I would give a hundred crowns to possess it.'
'It would seem perchance a love-token, and those I never give.'
'Ye are obdurate.'
Deborah turned away from those gleaming eyes. 'I am honest,' she said.
'Mistress Leyton,' said Adam Sinclair, turning with a courtly smile to an old dame who was sitting near, drinking elder-berry wine and listening open-eared, 'will ye not plead my cause? Here is Mistress Fleming will give me nought. And what do I ask? Nothing, but that red rose from her gown.'
'What would you do in my place, Mistress Leyton?' asked Deborah.
'Why, if I favoured Master Sinclair, I would give him the rose.'
'You put it very strongly,' laughed Deborah. 'But you have released me from my strait, for I could neither be so bold as to favour Master Sinclair nor so rude as to shew him none; so I give my rose to you.'