greater than at this moment.  Her beauty had its sweetest quality, for the princess was sunk and the woman was dominant, with flushed face and flashing eyes that caught a double luster from the glowing love that made her heart beat so fast.  Her gown, too, was the best she could have worn to show her charms.  She must have known Brandon was there, and must have dressed especially to go to him.  She wore her favorite long flowing outer sleeve, without the close fitting inner one.  It was slit to the shoulder, and gave entrancing glimpses of her arms with every movement, leaving them almost bare when she lifted her hands, which was often, for she was as full of gestures as a Frenchwoman.  Her bodice was cut low, both back and front, showing her large perfectly molded throat and neck, like an alabaster pillar of beauty and strength, and disclosing her bosom just to its shadowy incurving, white and billowy as drifted snow.  Her hair was thrown back in an attempt at a coil, though, like her own rebellious nature, it could not brook restraint, and persistently escaped in a hundred little curls that fringed her face and lay upon the soft white nape of her neck like fluffy shreds of sun-lit floss on new cut ivory.

With the mood that was upon her, I wonder Brandon maintained his self-restraint even for a moment.  He felt that his only hope lay in silence, so he sat beside her and said nothing.  He told me long afterwards that while sitting there in the intervals between her speech, the oddest, wildest thoughts ran through his brain.  He wondered how he could escape.  He thought of the window, and that possibly he might break away through it, and then he thought of feigning illness, and a hundred other absurd schemes, but they all came to nothing, and he sat there to let events take their own course as they seemed determined to do in spite of him.

After a short silence, Mary continued, half banteringly:  “Answer me, sir!  I will have no more of this.  You shall treat me at least with the courtesy you would show a bourgeoise girl.”

“Oh, that you were only a burgher’s daughter.”

“Yes, I know all that; but I am not.  It can’t be helped, and you shall answer me.”

“There is no answer, dear lady—­I beg you—­oh, do you not see—­”

“Yes, yes; but answer my question; am I not kind—­more than you deserve?”

“Indeed, yes; a thousand times.  You have always been so kind, so gracious and so condescending to me that I can only thank you, thank you, thank you,” answered Brandon, almost shyly; not daring to lift his eyes to hers.

Mary saw the manner quickly enough—­what woman ever missed it, much less so keen-eyed a girl as she—­and it gave her confidence, and brought back the easy banter of her old time manner.

“How modest we have become!  Where is the boldness of which we used to have so much?  Kind?  Have I always been so?  How about the first time I met you?  Was I kind then?  And as to condescension, don’t—­don’t use that word between us.”