And she held out a wonderfully small hand towards my nosegay.
"Is that a London lesson?" I asked, holding the flowers away from her grasp.
"It holds good in the country also, sir; wherever, indeed, there is a man to gather flowers and more than one lady who loves smelling them."
"Well," said I, "the nosegay is yours at the price," and I held it out to her.
"The price? What, you desire to know my name?"
"Unless, indeed, I may call you one of my own choosing," said I, with a glance that should have been irresistible.
"Would you use it in speaking of me to Mistress Barbara there? No, I'll give you a name to call me by. You may call me Cydaria."
"Cydaria! A fine name!"
"It is," said she carelessly, "as good as any other."
"But is there no other to follow it?"
"When did a poet ask two names to head his sonnet? And surely you wanted mine for a sonnet?"
"So be it, Cydaria," said I.
"So be it, Simon. And is not Cydaria as pretty as Barbaria?"
"It has a strange sound," said I, "but it's well enough."
"And now—the nosegay!"
"I must pay a reckoning for this," I sighed; but since a bargain is a bargain I gave her the nosegay.
She took it, her face all alight with smiles, and buried her nose in it. I stood looking at her, caught by her pretty ways and graceful boldness. Boy though I was, I had been right in telling her that there are many ways of beauty; here were two to start with, hers and Barbara's. She looked up and, finding my gaze on her, made a little grimace as though it were only what she had expected and gave her no more concern than pleasure. Yet at such a look Barbara would have turned cold and distant for an hour or more. Cydaria, smiling in scornful indulgence, dropped me another mocking curtsey, and made as though she would go her way. Yet she did not go, but stood with her head half-averted, a glance straying towards me from the corner of her eye, while with her tiny foot she dug the gravel of the avenue.
"It is a lovely place, this park," said she. "But, indeed, it's often hard to find the way about it."
I was not backward to take her hint.
"If you had a guide now——" I began.
"Why, yes, if I had a guide, Simon," she whispered gleefully.
"You could find the way, Cydaria, and your guide would be most——"
"Most charitably engaged. But then——" She paused, drooping the corners of her mouth in sudden despondency.
"But what then?"
"Why then, Mistress Barbara would be alone."
I hesitated. I glanced towards the house. I looked at Cydaria.
"She told me that she wished to be alone," said I.
"No? How did she say it?"
"I will tell you all about that as we go along," said I, and Cydaria laughed again.
CHAPTER II
THE WAY OF YOUTH
The debate is years old; not indeed quite so old as the world, since Adam and Eve cannot, for want of opportunity, have fallen out over it, yet descending to us from unknown antiquity. But it has never been set at rest by general consent: the quarrel over Passive Obedience is nothing to it. It seems such a small matter though; for the debate I mean turns on no greater question than this: may a man who owns allegiance to one lady justify by any train of reasoning his conduct in snatching a kiss from another, this other being (for it is important to have the terms right) not (so far as can be judged) unwilling? I maintained that he might; to be sure, my position admitted of no other argument, and, for the most part, it is a man's state which determines his arguments and not his reasons that induce his state. Barbara declared that he could not; though, to be sure, it was, as she added most promptly, no concern of hers; for she cared not whether I were in love or not, nor how deeply, nor with whom, nor, in a word, anything at all about the matter. It was an abstract opinion she gave, so far as love, or what men chose to call such, might be involved; as to seemliness, she must confess that she had her view, with which, may be, Mr. Dale was not in agreement. The girl at the gardener's cottage must, she did not doubt, agree wholly with Mr. Dale; how otherwise would she have suffered the kiss in an open space in the park, where anybody might pass—and where, in fact (by the most perverse chance in the world), pretty Mistress Barbara herself passed at the moment when the thing occurred? However, if the matter could ever have had the smallest interest for her—save in so far as it touched the reputation of the village and might afford an evil example to the village maidens—it could have none at all now, seeing that she set out the next day to London, to take her place as Maid of Honour to Her Royal Highness the Duchess, and would have as little leisure as inclination to think of Mr. Simon Dale or of how he chose to amuse himself when he believed that none was watching. Not that she had watched: her presence was the purest and most unwelcome chance. Yet she could not but be glad to hear that the girl was soon to go back whence she came, to the great relief (she was sure) of Madame Dale and of her dear friends Lucy and Mary; to her love for whom nothing—no, nothing—should make any difference. For the girl herself she wished no harm, but she conceived that her mother must be ill at ease concerning her.
It will be allowed that Mistress Barbara had the most of the argument if not the best. Indeed, I found little to say, except that the village would be the worse by so much as the Duchess of York was the better for Mistress Barbara's departure; the civility won me nothing but the haughtiest curtsey and a taunt.
"Must you rehearse your pretty speeches on me before you venture them on your friends, sir?" she asked.
"I am at your mercy, Mistress Barbara," I pleaded. "Are we to part enemies?"
She made me no answer, but I seemed to see a softening in her face as she turned away towards the window, whence were to be seen the stretch of the lawn and the park-meadows beyond. I believe that with a little more coaxing she would have pardoned me, but at the instant, by another stroke of perversity, a small figure sauntered across the sunny fields. The fairest sights may sometimes come amiss.
"Cydaria! A fine name!" said Barbara, with curling lip. "I'll wager she has reasons for giving no other."
"Her mother gives another to the gardener," I reminded her meekly.
"Names are as easy given as—as kisses!" she retorted. "As for Cydaria, my lord says it is a name out of a play."
All this while we had stood at the window, watching Cydaria's light feet trip across the meadow, and her bonnet swing wantonly in her hand. But now Cydaria disappeared among the trunks of the beech trees.
"See, she has gone," said I in a whisper. "She is gone, Mistress Barbara."
Barbara understood what I would say, but she was resolved to show me no gentleness. The soft tones of my voice had been for her, but she would not accept their homage.
"You need not sigh for that before my face," said she. "And yet, sigh if you will. What is it to me? But she is not gone far, and, doubtless, will not run too fast when you pursue."
"When you are in London," said I, "you will think with remorse how ill you used me."
"I shall never think of you at all. Do you forget that there are gentlemen of wit and breeding at the Court?"
"The devil fly away with