Now I might have known that she was only luring me on to some pitfall of mockery, but I did not, and must needs burst out in some clumsy disclaimer meant to shield my dear lad.  And in the midst of it she laughed again.

“Oh, you do amuse me mightily, mon Capitaine,” she cried.  “I do protest I shall come to see you oftener.  Tis as good as any play!”

“Saw you ever a play in this backwoods wilderness?” I asked, glad of any excuse to change the talk and keep her by me.

“No, indeed.  But you are not to think that no one has seen the great world save only yourself, Captain Ireton.  What would you say if I should tell you that I, too, have seen your London, and even your Paris?”

Here I must blunder again and say that I had been wondering how else she came by the Parisian French; but at this her jesting mood vanished suddenly and she spoke softly.

“I had it of my mother, who came of the Huguenots.  She spoke it always to me.  But my father speaks it not, and now I am losing it for want of practice.”

How is it that love transforms the once contemptible into a thing most highly to be prized?  My eight years of campaigning on the Continent had given me the French speech, or so much of it as the clumsy tongue of me could master, and I had always held it in hearty English scorn.  Yet now I was eager enough to speak it with her, and to take as my very own the little cry of joy wherewith she welcomed my hesitant mouthing of it.

From that we fell to talking in her mother’s tongue of the hardships of those same Huguenot emigres; and when I looked not at her I could speak in terms dispassionate and cool of this or aught else; and when I looked upon her my heart beat faster and my blood leaped quickly, and I knew not always what it was I said.

After a time—­’twas when Darius fetched me my supper and the candles—­she went away; and so ended a day which saw the beginning of a struggle fiercer than any the turbaned Turk had ever given me.  For when I had eaten, and was alone with time to think, I knew well that I loved this woman and should always love her; this in spite of honor, or loyalty to Richard Jennifer, or any other thing in heaven or earth.

V

HOW I LOST WHAT I HAD NEVER GAINED

Though I dared not hope she would keep her promise and was sometimes so sorely beset as to tremble at her coming, Margery looked in upon me oftener, and soon there grew up between us a comradeship the like of which, I think, had never been between a woman loved and a man who, loving her, was yet constrained to play the part of her true lover’s friend.

If I played this part but stumblingly; if at times the madness of my passion would not be denied the look or word or hand-clasp not of poor cool friendship; I have this to comfort me:  that in after time, when my dear lad came to know, he forgave me freely—­nay, held me altogether blameless, as I was not.