none--for
the mere pleasure of ogling and bridling and calling attention to my
simpering. I should have seen no reason for airs and graces if I had
been among those on the bank when the fine young Marquess we heard of
saved the boat-load on the river and gave orders for the reviving of
the drowned man--in his wet skin. When 'tis spoke of--for 'tis a
favourite story--that little beast Tantillion hides her face behind her
fan and cries, 'Oh, Lud! thank Heaven I was not near. I should have
swooned away at the very sight.'"

She imitated the affected simper of a girl in such a manner that the
three sportsmen yelled with delight, and Roxholm himself gnawed his lip
to check an involuntary break into laughter.

"What didst say to her the day she bridled over it at Knepton, when the
young heir was there?" said Crowell, grinning. "I was told thou
disgraced thyself, Clo. What saidst thou?"

She was standing her full straight height among them and turned, with
her hands in her pockets and a grave face.

"My blood was hot," she answered. "I said, 'Damn thee for a lying
little fool!' _That_ thou wouldst not!"

And the men who lay on the ground roared till they rolled there, and
Roxholm gnawed his lip again, though not all from mirth, for there was
in his mind another thing. She did not laugh but stood in the same
position, but now looking out across the country spread below.

"I shall love no man who will scorn me," she continued in her mellow
voice; "but if I did I would be burned alive at the stake before I
would open my lips about it. And I would be burned alive at the stake
before I would play tricks with my word or break my promise when 'twas
given. Women think they can swear a thing and unswear it, to save or
please themselves. They give themselves to a man and then repent it and
are slippery. If I had given myself, and found I had been a fool, I
would keep faith. I would play no tricks--even though I learned to hate
him. No, I will not be a woman."

And she picked up her gun and strode away, and seeing this they rose
all three by one accord, as if she were their chieftain, and followed
her.

After they were gone my lord Marquess did not move for some time, but
lay still among the gorse and bracken at his full length, his hands
clasped behind his head. He gazed up into the grey sky with the look of
a man whose thoughts are deep and strange. But at last he rose, and
picking up his gun, shouldered it and strode forth o