"You may save yourself the trouble!" she flashed; and then laughed out merrily. "Let us not be so absurd! We are quarreling like two school-children over an apple. It's really a pleasure to meet you in this unconventional fashion, but we must be amiable. Our affairs will not be settled by words--I am sure of that. I must beg of you, the next time you come forth at night, to wear your cloak and dagger. The stage-setting is fair enough; and the players should dress their parts becomingly. I am already named Rosalind--at night; Aunt Pat we will call the Duchess in exile; and we were speaking a moment ago of the Fool. Well, yes; there was a Fool." "I might take the part myself, if Gillespie were not already cast for it." "Gillespie?" she said wonderingly; then added at once, as though memory had prompted her: "To be sure there is Gillespie." "There is certainly Gillespie. Perhaps you would liefer call him Orlando?" I ventured. "Let me see," she pondered, bending her head; then: "'O, that's a brave man! he writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them bravely, quite traverse, athwart the heart of his lover; as a puisny tilter, that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose; but all's brave that youth mounts and folly guides.'" "That is Celia's speech, but well rendered. Let us consider that you are Rosalind, Celia, Viola and Ariel all in one. And I shall be those immortal villains of old tragedy--first, second and third murtherer; or, if it suit you better, let me be Iago for honesty; Othello for great adventures; Hamlet for gloom; Shylock for relentlessness, and Romeo for love-sickness." Again she bent her head; then drawing a little away and clasping her hands, she quoted: "'Come, woo me, woo me; for now I am in a holiday humour and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very, very Rosalind?'" I stammered a moment, dimly recalling Orlando's reply in the play. I did not know whether she were daring me; and this was certainly not the girl's mood as we had met at St. Agatha's. My heart leaped and the blood tingled in my finger-tips as memory searched out the long-forgotten scene; and suddenly I threw at her the line: "'How if the kiss be denied?'" She shrugged her shoulders. "The rehearsal has gone far enough. Let us come back to earth again." But this, somehow, was not so easy.