"Why, if I 'd met an old gentleman outside his house in Spain, and he 'd
seen how I was suffering, he 'd have said his house was mine."
Marjolaine indignantly came down one step. "I am not an old gentleman; I
haven't any house in Spain; and it's a shame to say I 'm inhospitable!"
Jack's face wore an inscrutable smile. He protested. "I didn't. I
only said it was different."
Marjolaine came back to the gate.
"Are you really suffering?" she asked.
Jack turned away to hide an unmistakable grin. He spoke in a hollow
voice. "Intolerably." Then he turned to her with a haggard
countenance. "Look at my face!"
Marjolaine came out of the gate. Ah, Marjolaine! The moth and the
candle!
"I can't ask you in, because Maman and Nanette are out."
Jack staggered to the seat under the elm, and sank on it like a man in
the last stage of exhaustion. "It's of no consequence. I must row
back. Seven miles. Against the tide. Ah, well!"
Marjolaine was genuinely sorry for him. He really was very good-looking.
"I'm sure Maman would ask you in, if she were here."
"I 'm quite sure of that."
"And I think she would not like me to be--as you say--inhospitable."
"I didn't say it; but I'm quite sure she would n't."
Marjolaine's kind little heart was quite melted. This good-looking young
man spoke so very humbly.
"I might--I might bring you out something--"
A gleam of triumph crossed Jack's face, but he answered with the air of
a martyr: "Oh! don't trouble!"
Marjolaine's sense of the proprieties got the better of her again.
"What would the neighbours say if they saw me feeding an entire
stranger?"
Jack leaped up in indignant protest. "But I 'm not! I 've told you my
name. That's as much as anybody ever knows about anybody!"
Marjolaine was now in the shadow of the elm. She examined every house in
the Walk. "Number One 's asleep; Number Two 's combing her wig; Number
Three 's working; Number Five's nursing one of the four; and Number
Six"--poor Doctor Sternroyd!--"doesn't matter. I 'll risk it." She
turned to go in, but stopped. "What would you like?"
Jack protested, "Oh, my dear young lady!--It's not for me to say.
Anything you offer me--anything!"
Ticking the items off on her pretty fingers, Marjolaine enumerated the
various beverages stored in her mother's cupboard. "We have elderberry
wine; cowslip wine; red-currant wine; and gooseberry wine."
Jack's face was a study. It had grown so long that Marjolaine exclaimed
with genuine sympathy, "Why, you look quite ill! Which do you say?"
It was a choice between poison and discourtesy, but Jack was equal to
it. "I 've been brought up very simply. I should never have the
presumption to ask for any of those. Have n't you any ale?"
"Ale!" cried Marjolaine, "how low!"
"I said I 'd been brought up simply."
"We have no ale."