Part 17 (1/2)
”You may take them for such, madam,” he answered sulkily ”You liked me not as I was--”
”And I like you less as you are,” she broke in
”Cynthia, you rily
”Now, Heaven forbid! I do but e,” she answered airily
”These scented clothes are but a masquerade, even as your coat of black and your cant were a masquerade Then you simulated Godliness; now you simulate Heaven knohat But now, as then, it is nothat you are not”
He left her in a pet, and went in search of Gregory, into whose ear he poured the story of his woes that had their source in Cynthia's unkindness From this resulted a stormy intervieixt Cynthia and her father, in which Cynthia at last declared that she would not be wedded to a fop
Gregory shrugged his shoulders and laughed cynically, replying that it was the way of young h folly lay the road to wisdom
”Be that as it may,” she answered him with spirit, ”this folly transcends all bounds Master Stewart h he is wasting time”
”Cynthia!” he cried
”Father,” she pleaded, ”why be angry? You would not have ainst the inclinations of my heart? You would not have ht do you despise hiht of the freedohts--the only freedom that a woman knows For the rest it seems she is but a chattel; of no more consideration to a man than his ox or his ass hich the Scriptures rank her--a thing to be given or taken, bought or sold, as others shall decree”
”Child, child, what know you of these things?” he cried ”You are overwrought, sweetheart” And with the promise to wait until a calmer frame of mind in her should be more propitious to what he wished to say further on this score, he left her
She went out of doors in quest of solitude a the naked trees of the park; instead she found Sir Crispin, seated deep in thought upon a fallen trunk
Through the trees she espied hiown announced to hi his hat, made shi+ft to pass on
”Sir Crispin,” she called, detaining him He turned
”Your servant, Mistress Cynthia”
”Are you afraid of me, Sir Crispin?”
”Beauty, e rather than fear,” he answered, with a smile
”That, sir, is an evasion, not an answer”
”If read aright, Mistress Cynthia, it is also an answer”
”That you do not fear me?”
”It is not a habit of mine”