Yet in an instant she had changed again to her old
expression of merriment leavened with mischief.
"Wilt do what I ask?" said she.
"What is it, lady?"
"Oh, most ungallant clerk! A true knight would never have asked,
but would have vowed upon the instant. 'Tis but to bear me out
in what I say to my father."
"In what?"
"In saying, if he ask, that it was south of the Christchurch road
that I met you. I shall be shut up with the tire-women else, and
have a week of spindle and bodkin, when I would fain be galloping
Troubadour up Wilverley Walk, or loosing little Roland at the
Vinney Ridge herons."
"I shall not answer him if he ask."
"Not answer! But he will have an answer. Nay, but you must not
fail me, or it will go ill with me."
"But, lady," cried poor Alleyne in great distress, "how can I say
that it was to the south of the road when I know well that it was
four miles to the north."
"You will not say it?"
"Surely you will not, too, when you know that it is not so?"
"Oh, I weary of your preaching!" she cried, and swept away with a
toss of her beautiful head, leaving Alleyne as cast down and
ashamed as though he had himself proposed some infamous thing.
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