Читать книгу A Clerk of Oxford, and His Adventures in the Barons' War - Everett-Green Evelyn - Страница 8

"Have a care how thou dost answer me, Mistress; I am not one who brooks trifling!"

"I have never trifled with thee, Roger de Horn," answered the maiden addressed, speaking firmly though gently. "Methinks thou dost forget thyself in speaking such words to me to-day."

The dark face of Roger was deeply flushed. He looked as though he had been drinking – as indeed was probably the case; at any rate he was very angry, and his words came hissing from between his teeth in a fashion not pleasant to hear.

"Not trifled with me, quotha? Canst thou look me in the face and say that? – whilst the love-token that thou didst give me lies now upon my heart!"

The face of Linda Balzani flushed deeply, partly with anger, partly with maiden modesty. She drew herself away with a gesture full of simple dignity.

"I have given thee no token," she said. "If thou hast received aught, it must be from the hands of my sister. I know nothing of any token."

"What!" cried the young man, the flush mounting even to his brow, "wilt thou deny the kiss that thou didst bestow upon me out in the greenwood on Midsummer Eve, and the token thou didst give me as proof of thy love?"

Linda drew away yet a little farther, and glanced round the room as though seeking some way of exit. The excitement in Rogers manner was unpleasant, and the claim he was making upon her was revolting. She had always disliked this braggart, even though treating him with civility as her brother's friend. Of late she had come to dislike him more and more, and to shrink from his approach as one shrinks from the proximity of some noisome reptile. She had fancied that her sister had of late been seeking the society of Roger with pleasure; which thing rather perplexed her, because in private Lotta never masked her dislike and contempt for the bully and swaggerer, and of late had been more severe in her strictures than ever.