Robin sat his horse silently till peace was
restored, his right leg flung across the pommel, untwisting Agnes' leash
from his fist. Then he asked for Mistress Marjorie, and dropped to the
ground, leaving his mare and falcon in the man's hands, with an air.
He flicked his fingers to growling Jacob as he went past to the side
entrance on the east, stepped in through the little door that was beside
the great one, and passed on as he had been bidden into the little
court, turned to the left, went up an outside staircase, and so down a
little passage to the ladies' parlour, where he knocked upon the door.
The voice he knew called to him from within; and he went in, smiling to
himself. Then he took the girl who awaited him there in both his arms,
and kissed her twice--first her hands and then her lips, for respect
should come first and ardour second.
"My love," said Robin, and threw off his hat with the pheasant's tail,
for coolness' sake.
* * * * *
It was a sweet room this which he already knew by heart; for it was here
that he had sat with Marjorie and her mother, silent and confused,
evening after evening, last autumn; it was here, too, that she had led
him last Christmas Eve, scarcely ten days ago, after he had kissed her
in the enclosed garden. But the low frosty sunlight lay in it now, upon
the blue painted wainscot that rose half up the walls, the tall presses
where the linen lay, the pieces of stuff, embroidered with pale lutes
and wreaths that Mistress Manners had bought in Derby, hanging now over
the plaster spaces.
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