"But if you desire me to walk with you----" I began. "There is nothing I thought of less," she interrupted. "I came here to be alone." "My pleasure lies in obeying you," said I, and I stood bareheaded while Barbara, without another glance at me, walked off towards the house. Half penitent, yet wholly obstinate, I watched her go; she did not once look over her shoulder. Had she--but a truce to that. What passed is enough; with what might have, my story would stretch to the world's end. I smothered my remorse, and went up to the stranger, bidding her good-day in my most polite and courtly manner; she smiled, but at what I knew not. She seemed little more than a child, sixteen years old or seventeen at the most, yet there was no confusion in her greeting of me. Indeed, she was most marvellously at her ease, for, on my salute, she cried, lifting her hands in feigned amazement, "A man, by my faith; a man in this place!" Well pleased to be called a man, I bowed again. "Or at least," she added, "what will be one, if it please Heaven." "You may live to see it without growing wrinkled," said I, striving to conceal my annoyance. "And one that has repartee in him! Oh, marvellous!" "We do not all lack wit in the country, madame," said I, simpering as I supposed the Court gallants to simper, "nor, since the plague came to London, beauty." "Indeed, it's wonderful," she cried in mock admiration. "Do they teach such sayings hereabouts, sir?" "Even so, madame, and from such books as your eyes furnish." And for all her air of mockery, I was, as I remember, much pleased with this speech. It had come from some well-thumbed romance, I doubt not. I was always an eager reader of such silly things. She curtseyed low, laughing up at me with roguish eyes and mouth. "Now, surely, sir," she said, "you must be Simon Dale, of whom my host the gardener speaks?" "It is my name, madame, at your service. But the gardener has played me a trick; for now I have nothing to give in exchange for your name." "Nay, you have a very pretty nosegay in your hand," said she. "I might be persuaded to barter my name for it." The nosegay that was in my hand I had gathered and brought for Barbara Quinton, and I still meant to use it as a peace-offering. But Barbara had treated me harshly, and the stranger looked longingly at the nosegay. "The gardener is a niggard with his flowers," she said with a coaxing smile. "To confess the truth," said I, wavering in my purpose, "the nosegay was plucked for another." "It will smell the sweeter," she cried, with a laugh. "Nothing gives flowers such a perfume." And she held out a wonderfully small hand towards my nosegay. "Is that a London lesson?" I asked, holding the flowers away from her grasp. "It holds good in the country also, sir; wherever, indeed, there is a man to gather flowers and more than one lady who loves smelling them." "Well," said I, "the nosegay is yours at the price," and I held it out to her.