Then Nell, who, being angry, desired above all else to put a slight upon me, called me to come to her, speaking roughly as though I had been a servitor, and bade me take a misbehaving puppy dog of hers within doors. But I was equal with her, and beckoned to me Sandy, her brother, who played about on the grass plots. ’Who may this little girl be that hath the messan dog with her?’ I asked of him. ’Thou art a great blind colt-head not to know my sister Nell!’ he answered, and ran again to his play with his brothers. ’Ah,’ said I, looking over the heads of those that stood near by, ’now I do remember to have seen the little maid playing with her dolls before I went to the wars!’ And with that I marched off, and walked to and fro on the terrace near to my master. Presently he came and walked with me, as I had hoped he would, in sight of Nell and of them all, speaking low and kindly the while. And I listened as though it were an affair of State and policy he had been confiding to my private ear, though indeed it was only concerning our greatly increased expenses with the vast number of guests who came to see him, and his fear that the buttery might be running low. When Nell Kennedy had betaken herself away in an access of anger and despite, I made my bow to Sir Thomas, her father, and went to the Italian pleasaunce once again. Presently the young Lady Marjorie came walking by, fairer of face than the flower of the hawthorn hedge on a moonlight night, but with hair tossed about her temples blacker than the sky on a night of stars. Her eyes were bright and large when she turned them on me. ’Launcelot, come and walk with me awhile,’ she said kindly, ’unless you have something better to do—with your arms and war gear as it may be,’ she added. And her way of speaking thus of my calling as a soldier pleased me. Also in spite of my renunciation of all pleasure in women’s society, my heart gave a great stound at her marked favour. Perhaps, also, at the way she had in walking, which was with her head high and her bosom set well forward in its openwork bodice of fair linen, and all her sweet body swaying lightly to the side as a willow wand that bends in the wind. Her voice, the voice of Marjorie Kennedy, sounded like the running of deep water in a linn under the dusk of trees, with undercurrents of sobs and pitifulness in it, for all that it was so proud. For even thus, in her youth, walking as the fairest maid the sun shone on, Marjorie seemed ever to be ’fey,’ trysted to some lot beyond that of maids who are to be good men’s wives and mothers. But enough of speaking about her and about. Better that I should tell what she said to me as we walked up and down, while the young buds were cracking open that gracious May gloaming. ’It was a good fight, I hear, and well fought,’she said. ’Which fight may it please you to speak of, my Lady Marjorie?’ said I, making as though I had been in many.