“Listen to the lousel! Lord of the Deer! Lord of the Swine more likely. Now, Sir Legion, old Roger Ferrers is master of this forest, and you——” He cut her short, chin in air. “Roger Ferrers has gone with the duke to bargain with the Scots. Fulk Ferrers, the duke’s riding forester, lords it here. I am he. Come, let’s have no more scuffling—even with words.” She sprang up suddenly. “The riding forester! Messire Fulk Ferrers! Good, very good! Messire Fulk, I make you a curtsy. Maybe, you can tell the slot of a deer from the hoof-mark of a mule, even if you cannot tell a man from a woman. Messire Fulk, since you are gentle born, I will dare to wish you good-night.” “You can wish me with the devil, madam, but it will be good-morrow in the White Lodge over yonder. Am I a fool?” “Oh—well, but not a gallant fool! You will let me go?” “No.” “Yes.” “I said nay to you.” “So have better men before now—and repented of it.” He was challenged, despite his boyish shrewdness, by a laughing audacity in the woman’s voice. Her meek mood was no more than spilt milk. She walked beside him with a swinging motion and an air of provocative insolence, and though her face was a mere grey blur he could imagine a curling of the lips and a gleaming of the eyes. “I have said nay. Let it stand. As a matter of gossip I’ll ask you why I should let you go?” “Only a fool would ask that!” “Dub me a fool.” “Because I am a woman—and I ask it.” He laughed ironically, not looking at her but away over the heath. “Put that in your girdle with your knife. A woman is no more than a man to me when I cherish the deer.” She swung closer, and her voice changed to a mischievous, pleading whisper. “Ah, but Messire Fulk, listen a moment.” “You may find the verderers more easily cozened when the swainmote meets.” “Good sir, how young you are!” “Younger than an old fool, perhaps.” “Be careful. It is the young fools who boast.” She became ominously mute and docile of a sudden, and, turning from him, walked out slowly from under the shadow of the yews. Fulk went with her, step for step. She paused where the heathland began, and even as she paused the moon began to disappear behind a black drift of clouds. “Wretch—traitor moon! Look!” Fulk looked at the sky when she had meant him to look at her. “What’s amiss with the moon?” She gave him a significant side-glance, lids half closed, eyes glimmering. “It is so dark again. Ah, Messire Fulk, you may not see me until to-morrow.” “There is light enough for me to see you safe to the White Lodge.” “Only the shadow of me. Look, now, am I young or old? Oh, come, be gallant!”