“I remember a gay match when I bowled against my Lord of Buckingham, and fair ladies sat and smiled upon us. The fairest laughed, and tied her colors around my arm.”

The lady whom he addressed sat quietly, with hands folded in her silken lap and an untroubled face. “I did not know you then, my lord,” she answered him, quite softly and sweetly. “Had I done so, be sure I would have cut my hand off ere it gave color of mine to” — ”To whom?” he demanded, as she paused.

“To a coward, my lord,” she said clearly.

As if she had been a man, his hand went to his sword hilt. As for her, she leaned back in her chair and looked at him with a smile.

He spoke at last, slowly and with deliberate emphasis.