“I won then,” he said. “I shall win again, my lady, — my Lady Jocelyn Leigh.”

I dropped my hand from her chair and stepped forward. “It is my wife to whom you speak, my Lord Carnal,” I said sternly. “I wait to hear you name her rightly.”

Rolfe rose from the grass and stood beside me, and Jeremy Sparrow, shouldering aside with scant ceremony Burgess and Councilor, came also. The Governor leaned forward out of his chair, and the crowd became suddenly very still.

“I am waiting, my lord,” I repeated.

In an instant, from what he had been he became the frank and guileless nobleman. “A slip of the tongue, Captain Percy!” he cried, his white teeth showing and his hand raised in a gesture of deprecation.