“No,” returned Brandon, who, in his turn, was recovering himself, “no, I can’t say that you were very kind at first.  How you did fly out at me and surprise me.  It was so unexpected it almost took me off my feet,” and they both laughed in remembering the scene of their first meeting.  “No, I can’t say your kindness showed itself very strongly in that first interview, but it was there nevertheless, and when Lady Jane led me back, your real nature asserted itself, as it always does, and you were kind to me; kind as only you can be.”

That was getting very near to the sentimental; dangerously near, he thought; and he said to himself:  “If this does not end quickly I shall have to escape.”

“You are easily satisfied if you call that good,” laughingly returned Mary.  “I can be ever so much better than that if I try.”

“Let me see you try,” said Brandon.

“Why, I’m trying now,” answered Mary with a distracting little pout.  “Don’t you know genuine out-and-out goodness when you see it?  I’m doing my very best now.  Can’t you tell?”

“Yes, I think I recognize it; but—­but—­be bad again.”

“No, I won’t!  I will not be bad even to please you; I have determined not to be bad and I will not—­not even to be good.  This,” placing her hand over her heart, “is just full of ‘good’ to-day,” and her lips parted as she laughed at her own pleasantry.

“I am afraid you had better be bad—­I give you fair warning,” said Brandon huskily.  He felt her eyes upon him all the time, and his strength and good resolves were oozing out like wine from an ill-coppered cask.  After a short silence Mary continued, regardless of the warning: 

“But the position is reversed with us; at first I was unkind to you, and you were kind to me, but now I am kind to you and you are unkind to me.”

“I can come back at you with your own words,” responded Brandon.  “You don’t know when I am kind to you.  I should be kinder to myself, at least, were I to leave you and take myself to the other side of the world.”

“Oh! that is one thing I wanted to ask you about.  Jane tells me you are going to New Spain?”

She was anxious to know, but asked the question partly to turn the conversation which was fast becoming perilous.  As a girl, she loved Brandon, and knew it only too well, but she knew also that she was a princess, standing next to the throne of the greatest kingdom on earth; in fact, at that time, the heir apparent—­Henry having no children—­for the people would not have the Scotch king’s imp—­and the possibility of such a thing as a union with Brandon had never entered her head, however passionate her feelings toward him.  She also knew that speaking a thought vitalizes it and gives it force; so, although she could not deny herself the pleasure of being near him, of seeing him, and hearing the tones of his voice, and now and then feeling the thrill of an accidental touch, she had enough good sense to know that a mutual