hand, while yet another grew red at mention of his name, and put to his credit much that was not creditable, was perhaps not strange.  He, like his neighbors, had many selves, and each in its turn—­the scholar, the man of pleasure, the indolent, kindly, reflective self, the self of pride and cool assurance and stubborn will—­took its place behind the mask, and went through its allotted part.  His self of all selves, the quiet, remote, crowned, and inscrutable I, sat apart, alike curious and indifferent, watched the others, and knew how little worth the while was the stir in the ant-hill.

But on a May Day, in the sunshine and the blossoming woods and the company of Mistress Evelyn Byrd, it seemed, for the moment, worth the while.  At his invitation she had taken his hand and descended from the coach.  The great, painted thing moved slowly forward, bearing the unconscious Colonel, and the two pedestrians walked behind it:  he with his horse’s reins over his arm and his hat in his hand; she lifting her silken skirts from contact with the ground, and looking, not at her companion, but at the greening boughs, and at the sunlight striking upon smooth, pale beech trunks and the leaf-strewn earth beneath.  Out of the woods came a sudden medley of bird notes, clear, sweet, and inexpressibly joyous.

“That is a mockingbird,” said Haward.  “I once heard one of a moonlight night, beside a still water”—­

He broke off, and they listened in silence.  The bird flew away, and they came to a brook traversing the road, and flowing in wide meanders through the forest.  There were stepping-stones, and Haward, crossing first, turned and held out his hand to the lady.  When she was upon his side of the streamlet, and before he released the slender fingers, he bent and kissed them; then, as there was no answering smile or blush, but only a quiet withdrawal of the hand and a remark about the crystal clearness of the brook, looked at her, with interrogation in his smile.

“What is that crested bird upon yonder bough,” she asked,—­“the one that gave the piercing cry?”

“A kingfisher,” he answered, “and cousin to the halcyon of the ancients.  If, when next you go to sea, you take its feathers with you, you need have no fear of storms.”

A tree, leafless, but purplish pink with bloom, leaned from the bank above them.  He broke a branch and gave it to her.  “It is the Judas-tree,” he told her.  “Iscariot hanged himself thereon.”

Around the trunk of a beech a lizard ran like a green flame, and they heard the distant barking of a fox.  Large white butterflies went past them, and a hummingbird whirred into the heart of a wild honeysuckle that had hasted to bloom.  “How different from the English forests!” she said.  “I could love these best.  What are all those broad-leaved plants with the white, waxen flowers?”

“May-apples.  Some call them mandrakes, but they do not rise shrieking, nor kill the wight that plucks them.  Will you have me gather them for you?”