"Why--yes," I stammered, not knowing exactly what she meant; "I cannot see that there is such difference in rank between us that Sir William should forbid me to wed you. Of course you would not wed beneath you, and, as for me, I'd sooner cut my head off!"

"I was afraid," she ventured, "that perhaps--perhaps Sir William thought you had become too fine for me. I could not endure to wed you if that were true."

This was a new idea. Was it true that my quality unfitted me to mate with Silver Heels? The idea did not gratify me now.

"I'll tell you this," said I, "that if I loved you in that way--you know what I mean!--I'd wed you anyhow!"

"But I would not wed you!" she said, haughtily.

"You would not refuse me?" I asked, in amazement.

"I should hate you--if you were above me--in rank!"

"Even if you loved me before?"

"Ah, yes--even if I loved you--as I love--him whom I love."

Her clear eyes were looking straight into mine now. Again her voice had stirred some new and untouched chord which curiously thrilled, sounding stealthily within me.

She lowered her eyes to the blue blossom in her fingers, and I saw her crush it. What soft, white fingers she had! The flushed tips, crushing the blossom, fascinated me.

Again, suddenly, my heart began to beat heavily, thumping in my throat so strangely that I shivered and pa.s.sed my hand over my breast.

Silver Heels bent lower over her idle hands; her fingers, so exquisite, were still now.

Presently I said, "Who is this fool whom you love?"

I had not thought to fright or hurt her, but she flushed and burned until all her face was surging scarlet to her hair.

"Silver Heels," I stammered, catching her fingers.

At the touch the strange thrill struck through my body and I choked, unable to utter a word; but the desire for her hands set me quivering, and I caught her fingers and drew them, interlocked, from her eyes.

Her eyes! Their beauty amazed me; their frightened, perilous sweetness drew my head down to them. Breathless, her mouth touched mine; against me her heart was beating; then suddenly she had gone, and I sprang to my feet to find her standing tearful, quivering, with her hands on her throbbing throat. I leaned against a sapling, dazed, content to meet her eyes and strive to think. Useless! In my whirling thoughts I could but repeat her name, endlessly. Other thoughts crept in, but flew scattering to the four winds, while every pulse within me throbbed out her name, repeating, ceaselessly repeating, in my beating heart.

We were so poor in years, so utterly untried in love, that the strangeness of it set us watching one another. Pa.s.sion, shaking frail bodies, startles, till pain, always creeping near, intrudes, dismaying maid and youth to love's confusion.

With a sort of curious terror she watched me leaning there, and I saw her trembling fingers presently busied with the silken hat ribbons under her chin, tying and retying as though she knew not what she did.

Then of a sudden she dropped on the rock and fell a-weeping without a sound; and I knelt beside her, crushing her shoulders close to me, and kissing her neck and hands, nay, the very damask on her knees, and the silken tongue of her buckled shoon among the b.u.t.tercups.

Why she wept I knew not, nor did she--nor did I ask her why. Her frail hands fell listlessly, scarcely moving under my lips. Once she laid her arm about my neck, then dropped it as though repelled. And never a word could we find to break the silence.

I heard the wind blowing somewhere in the world, but where, I cared not. I heard blossoms discreetly stirring, and dusky branches interlacing, taking counsel together behind their leafy, secret screens. My ears were filled with voiceless whisperings, delicate and noiseless words were forming in the silence, "I love you"; and my dumb tongue and lips, unstirring, understood, and listened. Then, when my sweetheart had also heard, she turned and put both arms around my neck, linking her fingers, and her gray eyes looked down at me, beside her knees.

"Now you must go," she was repeating, touching her little French hat with tentative fingers to straighten it, but eyes and lips tenderly smiling at me. "My Lady Shelton and Sir Timerson Chank will surely return to catch you here if you hasten not--dear heart."

"But will you not tell me when you first loved me, Silver Heels?" I persisted.

"Well, then--if you must be told--it was on the day when you first wore your uniform, and I saw you were truly a man!"

"That day! When you scarcely spoke to me?"

"Ay, that was the reason. Yet now I think of it, I know I have always loved you dearly; else why should I have been so hurt when you misused me; why should I have cried abed so many, many nights, vowing to my heart that I did hate you as I hated no man! Ah--dear friend, you will never know--"

"But," I insisted, "you grew cool enough to wed Lord Dunmore--"

"Horror! Why must you ever hark back to him when I tell you it was not I who did that, but a cruelly used and foolish child, stung with the pain of your indifference, maddened to hear you talk of mating me as though I were your hound!--and my only thought was to put myself above you and beyond your reach to shame me--"

"Oh, Silver Heels!" I murmured, aghast at my own wickedness.

But she was already smiling again, with her slender hands laid on my shoulders.

"All that tastes sweetly--now," she said.

"It is ashes in my mouth," I said, bitterly, and upbraided myself aloud, until she placed her fingers on my face and silently signed me to turn around.

At the same instant a wheezy noise came to my ears, and the next moment, over the edge of the slope, a large, round face rose like the full moon.

Fascinated, I watched it; the wheezing grew louder and more laboured.

"Lady Shelton! Oh, go! go!" whispered Silver Heels. But it was too late for flight had I been so minded.

Suddenly my Lady Shelton's fat feet began to trot as though of their own notion, for her cold, flabby features expressed no emotion, although, from the moment her moon-like face had risen behind the hill, I saw that her eyes were fixed on me.

After her puffed the fat gentleman, Sir Timerson Chank, and behind him came mincing Lord Dunmore, fanning his face with a lace handkerchief, his little gold-edged French hat under his arm. Faith, he was in a rare temper.

Lady Shelton paddled up to Silver Heels, halted, and panted at her.

Then she turned on me and panted at me until her voice returned. With her voice, her features a.s.sumed a most extraordinary change; billows of fat agitated the expanse of chin and cheek, and her voice, babyish in fury, made me jump, for it sounded as though some tiny, pixy creature, buried inside of her, was scolding me.

Sir Timerson Chank now bore down on my left and presently rounded to, delivering his broadside at short range; but I turned on him savagely, bidding him hold his tongue, which so astonished him that he obeyed me.

As for Dunmore, his shrill prattle never ceased, and he danced and vapoured and fingered his small-sword, till my hands itched to throw him into the blackberry thicket.

"If," said I, to Lady Shelton, "you are pleased to forbid me your door, pray remember, madam, that your authority extends no farther! I shall not ask your permission to address my cousin, Miss Warren--nor yours!" I added, wheeling on Sir Timerson Chank.

"Sir Timerson! Sir Timerson! Arrest him! You are a magistrate. Sir Timerson! Arrest him! Oh, I'm all of a twitter!" panted Lady Shelton.

But Sir Timerson Chank made no sign of compliance.

"Lord Dunmore," I said, "by what privilege do you a.s.sume to vapour and handle the hilt of your small-sword in Miss Warren's presence?"

"Sink me!" cried Lord Dunmore. "Sink me now, Mr. Cardigan; you should know that I have privileges, sir. I will have you to know that I have privileges, sir! Crib me! but I will a.s.sert my rights!"

"Your--what?" I replied, contemptuously.

"My rights! My privilege to defend Miss Warren--my rights, sir! I stand upon them, crib me, if I don't!"

"Shame on you!" cried Lady Shelton, panting angrily at me. "Shame on you--you mannerless, roving, bl.u.s.tering, hectoring rebel!--you--you _boy_! Oh, I'm all of a twitter! Sir Timerson, I'm all of a twitter!--"