crying, "What folly!"

"A moment ago you didn't call it folly."

"Then I was doubly a fool," she answered with the first touch of
bitterness. "For folly it is, deep and black. I am not--nay, was I
ever?--one to ramble in green fields all day and go home to a cottage."

"Never," said I. "Nor will be, save for the love of a man you love. Save
for that, what woman has been? But for that, how many!"

"Why, very few," said she with a gentle little laugh. "And of that
few--I am not one. Nay, nor do I--am I cruel?--nor do I love you,
Simon."

"You swear it?"

"But a little--as a friend, an old friend."

"And a dear one?"

"One dear for a certain pleasant folly that he has."

"You'll come?"

"No."

"Why not? But in a day neither you nor I would ask why."

"I don't ask now. There's a regiment of reasons." Her laugh burst out
again; yet her eyes seemed tender.

"Give me one."

"I have given one. I don't love you."

"I won't take it."

"I am what I am."

"You should be what I would make you."

"You're to live at the Court. To serve the Duke of Monmouth, isn't it?"

"What do I care for that? Are there no others?"

"Let go my hand--No, let it go. See now, I'll show you. There's a ring
on it."

"I see the ring."

"A rich one."

"Very rich."

"Simon, do you guess who set it there?"

"He is your King only while you make him such."

"Nay," she cried with sudden passion, "I am set on my course." Then came
defiance. "I wouldn't change it. Didn't I tell you once that I might
have power with the King?"

"Power? What's that to you? What's it to any of us beside love?"

"Oh, I don't know anything about your love," she cried fretfully, "but I
know what I love--the stir, and the frowns of great ladies, and the
courting of great lords. Ah, but why do I talk? Do we reason with a
madman?"

"If we are touched ever so little with his disease."

She turned to me with sparkling eyes; she spoke very softly.

"Ah, Simon, you too have a tongue! Can you also lure women? I think you
could. But keep it, Simon, keep it for your wife. There's many a maid
would gladly take the title, for you're a fine figure, and I think that
you know the way to a woman's heart."

Standing above me (for I had sunk back in my chair) she caressed my
cheek gently with her hand. I was checked, but not beaten. My madness,
as she called it (as must not I also call it?), was still in me, hot and
surging. Hope was yet alive, for she had sh