"We fight where the King needs us most—that is the Metcalf way," he said at last. "If I asked you not to go? Of course, I care nothing either way. But suppose I asked you?" With entire simplicity and boyishness, Kit touched the kerchief in his hat. "This goes white so far as I can guide it." "Ah," said Lady Ingilby. "The King should hear of you, sir, in days to come." When he had gone, Joan came to her aunt’s side. "He—he does not care, and I would we were home in Yoredale, he and I. I was free to flout him there." "Never trust men," said Lady Ingilby, with great cheeriness. "He does not care, of course—no man does when the battle music sounds." "But he—he was glad to wear my kerchief." "It is the fashion among our Cavaliers. That is all. He would not care to take the field without a token that some poor gentlewoman was dying of heart-break for his wounds." Joan found her dignity. "My own heart is sound," she protested. "Then don’t accuse it, child, by protests." "I’m so glad that he’s gone—so glad!" She crossed to the window again, looked out on the sunlit street. "How drab the world is," she said pettishly. "There’ll be snow before night, I fancy; it grows chilly." "The world’s drab," assented Lady Ingilby. "What else does one expect at my years? And our six-foot Metcalf will forget you for the first pretty face he meets in York." "Is he so base? Tell me, is he so base?" "No; he forgets—simply, he forgets. Men do." Without, in Ripley street, there was great stir of men and horses getting ready for the York road. Lady Ingilby, hearing the tumult of it, crossed to the window, and her heart was lighter by twenty years as she watched the cavalcade ride out. "The White Horses, and six-score giants riding them! They’ll make history, girl. The pity is that not all of those six-score will sit a saddle again. They have the look of men who do not care how and when they die, so long as King Charles has need of them." "Kit will return," said Joan, in a chastened voice. "That is good hearing. How do you know it, baby-girl?" "Because I asked him to return. Just to nurse his wounds would be—Paradise, I think." The Metcalf men were a mile on the York road by now. Michael, the reputed black sheep and roysterer of the clan, rode close beside Christopher, and chattered of a face he had seen at an upper window of the Castle. "A face to lead a man anywhere," he finished, "Hair like wind in the rusty brackens." Kit touched the favour in his hat. "It is she I fight for, Michael—for the King and Joan." "Are you always to have luck, just for the asking?" growled Michael. "This time, yes, unless brother fights with brother." For a moment they were ready to withdraw from their kinsfolk and settle the issue in some convenient glade. Then Michael yielded to the queer, jealous love he had learned, long since in Yoredale, for this lad.