it."

"Even though she was a witch?" Mr. Derringham asked.

"It was still his word--don't you see? Her being a witch did not alter
his word. He did not give it because she was or was not a witch--but
because he himself wanted to at the time, I suppose; therefore, it was
binding."

"A man should always keep his word, even to a woman, then?" and John
Derringham smiled finely.

"Why not to a woman as well as a man?" Halcyone asked surprised. "You do
not see the point at all it seems. It is not to whom it is you give your
word--it is to you it matters that you keep it, because to break it
degrades yourself."

"You reason well, fair nymph," he said gallantly; he was frankly amused.
"What may your age be? A thousand years more or less will not make any
difference!"

"You may laugh at me if you like," said Halcyone, and she smiled; his
gayety was infectious, "but I am not so very young. I shall be thirteen
in October, the seventh of October."

John Derringham appeared to be duly impressed with this antiquity, and
went on gravely:

"So you and the Master discuss these knotty points of honor and
expediency together, do you, as a recreation from the Greek syntax? I