Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/227

 "Very shrewd of you," says he, "but I never was afraid of being laughed at."

I turned to Emblem with a frank amazement.

"Go you for a bodkin, girl, and I will prick him with it, for I would fain discover if this child of ours is actually made of blood and flesh. Not afraid of being laughed at!"

Straight I fell into a peal to prove how monstrously he lied. He chewed his lip, and struggled to cover up his very evident vexation.

"Sneer," says he, with anger darting from his eyes, "but my determination's taken. A week ago I swore that a single hair of my Lady Barbara should not suffer for her mercy. And when I make an oath I keep one, whatever others do."

He rose. A glance assured me that he was in an ugly mood of heroism. He held his hand out for the key. I glanced into his face, saw all the muscles in it tight, and his mouth locked in a silence that seemed to render the gravest word ridiculous.

"Oh come," I cries, "enough of claptrap! Have I done all this to be thwarted by a child? Do you not see if you persevere in this proud folly that the Captain triumphs? And I, a victorious rebel, should find it easier far to endure the Tower than the humiliations of defeat."

"Alas! these palpable devices," he sighed. "But it's the key I want, not trickeries."

Again I had a taste of my impotence with him. Hitherto my lightest whim was a law for the great