Page:A C Doyle - The White Company.djvu/171

Rh anger,' he said mildly. 'The maid's words have done me no scath. It is you yourself who have erred.'

'I know it,' she cried; 'I am a most wicked woman. But it is bad enough that one should misuse you. Ma foi! I will see that there is not a second one.'

'Nay, nay, no one has misused me,' he answered. 'But the fault lies in your hot and bitter words. You have called her a baggage and a lack-brain, and I know not what.'

And you are he who taught me to speak the truth,' she cried. 'Now I have spoken it, and yet I cannot please you. Lack-brain she is, and lack-brain I shall call her.'

Such was the sample of the sudden janglings which marred the peace of that little class. As the weeks passed, however, they became fewer and less violent, as Alleyne's firm and constant nature gained sway and influence over the Lady Maude. And yet, sooth to say, there were times when he had to ask himself whether it was not the Lady Maude who was gaining sway and influence over him. If she were changing, so was he. In drawing her up from the world, he was day by day being himself dragged down towards it. In vain he strove and reasoned with himself as to the madness of letting his mind rest upon Sir Nigel's daughter. What was he—a younger son, a penniless clerk, a squire unable to pay for his own harness—that he should dare to raise his eyes to the fairest maid in Hampshire? So spake reason; but, in spite of all, her voice was ever in his ears and her image in his heart. Stronger than reason, stronger than cloister teachings, stronger than all that might hold him back, was that old, old tyrant who will brook no rival in the kingdom of youth.

And yet it was a surprise and a shock to himself to find how deeply she had entered into his life; how completely those vague ambitions and yearnings which had filled his spiritual nature centred themselves now upon this thing of earth. He had scarce dared to face the change which had come upon him, when a few sudden chance words showed it all up hard and clear, like a lightning flash in the darkness.