The dainty colours of her face laughed from a russet hood, russet cloak
and green skirt wind-borne against her gave him the delight of her shape.

"'Stand, sir, and throw us that you have about you,'" she cried.

"You're poetical, ma'am."

"I vow not I. I say what I mean. There's an unmaidenly trick. And, faith,
I am here to rifle you, Mr. Boyce."

"Wish you joy, ma'am. What of?"

"Of your conceit, to be sure. Have you anything else?"

"I have nothing which could be of any use to Miss Lambourne. So God knows
why she runs after me."

"Oh, brave!" Miss Lambourne was not out of countenance. "'Tis a shameless
maid indeed which runs after a man"--she made him a curtsy. "But what is
the man who runs away from a maid?"

Harry Boyce cursed her in his heart. She was by far too desirable. The
rain-fraught wind had made the dawn tints of her clearer, lucent and yet
more delicate. Her grey eyes danced like the sunlight ripples of deep
water. Her lips were purely, brilliantly red. She fronted him and the
wind, flaunting the richness of her bosom, poised and strong. She seemed
the very body of life. For the first time he felt unsure of himself. "Did
you come to call names, ma'am?" he growled.