The Little Red Foot Part 56

"Even an a.s.s knows when he's sick!" he called out to me. But I laughed at him and saw his broad paddle stab the water, and the birchen craft shoot out among the reeds.

Now it was in my thoughts to see how Mistress Penelope would choose to conduct, who had so long and so tranquilly ignored me.

For here was I established upon the spot where she had been accustomed to sit through the long afternoons ... and think on Steve Watts, no doubt!...

Comes Mistress Penelope in sprigged gown of lavender, and smelling fresh of the herb itself or of some faint freshness.

I rested both hands upon the arms of my Windsor chair and so managed to stand erect.

She turned rosy to her ear-tips at the sudden encounter, but her voice was self-possessed and in nowise altered when she greeted me.

I offered my hand; she extended hers and I saluted it.

Then she seated herself at leisure in her Windsor reading-chair, laid her basket of wool-skeins upon the polished book-rest, and calmly fell to knitting.

"So, you are mending fast, sir," says she; and her smooth little fingers travelling steadily with her shining needles, and her dark eyes intent on both.

"Oh, for that," said I, "I am well enough, and shall soon be strong to strap war-belt and sling pack and sack.... Are you in health, Mistress Pen?"

She expressed thanks for the civil inquiry. And knitted on and on. And silence fell between us.

If it was then that I first began to fear I was in love with her, I do not surely remember now. For if such a doubt a.s.sailed me, then instantly my mind resented so unwelcome a notion. And not only was there no pleasure in the thought, but it stirred in me a kind of breathless anger which seemed to have long slumbered in its own ashes within me and now gave out a dull heat.

"Have you news of Lady Johnson and of Mistress Swift?" I asked at last.

She lifted her eyes in surprise.

"No, sir. How should news come to us here?"

"I thought there might be channels of communication."

"I know of none, sir. York is far, and the Canadas are farther still. No runners have come to Summer House."

"Still," said I, "communication was possible when I got my hurt last June."

"Sir?"

"Is that not true?"

She looked at me in troubled silence.

"Did not Lady Johnson's brother come here in secret to give her news, and take as much away?"

She did not answer.

"Once," said I, "although I had not asked, you told me that you were a friend to liberty."

"And am so," said she.

"And have a Tory lover."

At that her face flamed and her wool dropped into her lap. She did not look at me but sat with gaze ahead of her as though considering.

At last: "Do you mean Captain Watts?" she asked.

"Yes, I mean him."

"He is not my lover."

"I ask your pardon. The inference was as natural as my error."

"Sir?"

"Appearances," said I, "are proverbially deceitful. Instead of saying 'your lover,' I should, perhaps, have said '_one_ of your lovers.' And so again ask pardon."

"Are you my lover, sir?"

"I?" said I, taken aback at the direct shot so unexpected.

"Yes, you, my lord. Are you one of my lovers?"

"I think not. Why do you ask me that which never could be a question that yes or no need answer?"

"I thought perhaps you might deem yourself my lover."

"Why?"

"Because you kissed me once,--as did Captain Watts.... And two other gentlemen."

"Two other gentlemen?"

"Yes, sir. A cornet of horse,--his name escapes me--and Sir John."

"Who!" I blurted angrily.

"Sir John Johnson."

"The dissolute beast!" said I. "Had I known it that night at Johnson Hall----" But here I checked my speech and waited till the hot blood in my face was done burning.

And when again I was cool: "I am sorry for my heat," said I. "Your conduct is your own affair."

"You once made it yours, sir,--for a moment."

Again I went hot and red; and how I had conducted with this maid plagued me so that I found no word to answer.

She knitted for a little while. Then, lifting her dark young eyes:

"You have as secure a t.i.tle to be my lover as has any man, Mr. Drogue.

Which is no t.i.tle at all."