His courage was not to be put to the proof. I was still glaring at him, seeking some retort which should provoke him beyond endurance, when a hand was laid on my shoulder, and I turned to find that Master Bertie and the Duchess had joined us. "So here are the truants," the former said pleasantly, speaking in English, and showing no consciousness whatever of the crisis in the middle of which he had come up, though he must have discerned in our defiant attitudes, and in Dymphna's troubled face, that something was wrong. "You know who this is, Master Francis," he continued heartily. "Or have you not been introduced to Master Van Tree, the betrothed of our host's daughter?" "Mistress Dymphna has done me that honor," I said stiffly, recovering myself in appearance, while at heart sore and angry with everybody. "But I fear the Dutch gentleman has not thanked her for the introduction, since he learned that my grandmother was Spanish." "_Your_ grandmother, do you mean?" cried the Duchess, much astonished. "Yes, madam." "Well, to be sure!" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands and appealing whimsically to the others. "This boy is full of starts and surprises. You never know what he will produce next. The other day it was a warrant! To-day it is a grandmother, and a temper!" I could not be angry with her; and perhaps I was not sorry now that my quarrel with the young Dutchman had stopped where it had. I affected, as well as I could, to join in the laugh at my expense, and took advantage of the arrival of our host--who at this moment came up the slope from the landing-place, his hands outstretched and a smile of greeting on his kindly face--to slip away unnoticed, and make amends to my humor by switching off the heads of the withes by the river. But naturally the scene left a degree of ill-feeling behind it; and for the first time, during the two months we had spent under Master Lindstrom's roof, the party who sat down to supper were under some constraint. I felt that the young Dutchman had had the best of the bout in the garden; and I talked loudly and foolishly in the boyish attempt to assert myself, and to set myself right at least in my own estimation. Master Van Tree meanwhile sat silent, eying me from time to time in no friendly fashion. Dymphna seemed nervous and frightened, and the Duchess and her husband exchanged troubled glances. Only our host and Mistress Anne, who was in particularly good spirits, were unaffected by the prevailing chill.