Simon Dale | Page 5

mock admiration. "Do they teach
such sayings hereabouts, sir?"

"Even so, madame, and from such books as your eyes furnish." And for
all her air of mockery, I was, as I remember, much pleased with this
speech. It had come from some well-thumbed romance, I doubt not. I
was always an eager reader of such silly things.
She curtseyed low, laughing up at me with roguish eyes and mouth.
"Now, surely, sir," she said, "you must be Simon Dale, of whom my
host the gardener speaks?"
"It is my name, madame, at your service. But the gardener has played
me a trick; for now I have nothing to give in exchange for your name."
"Nay, you have a very pretty nosegay in your hand," said she. "I might
be persuaded to barter my name for it."
The nosegay that was in my hand I had gathered and brought for
Barbara Quinton, and I still meant to use it as a peace-offering. But
Barbara had treated me harshly, and the stranger looked longingly at
the nosegay.
"The gardener is a niggard with his flowers," she said with a coaxing
smile.
"To confess the truth," said I, wavering in my purpose, "the nosegay
was plucked for another."
"It will smell the sweeter," she cried, with a laugh. "Nothing gives
flowers such a perfume." And she held out a wonderfully small hand
towards my nosegay.
"Is that a London lesson?" I asked, holding the flowers away from her
grasp.
"It holds good in the country also, sir; wherever, indeed, there is a man
to gather flowers and more than one lady who loves smelling them."
"Well," said I, "the nosegay is yours at the price," and I held it out to
her.

"The price? What, you desire to know my name?"
"Unless, indeed, I may call you one of my own choosing," said I, with a
glance that should have been irresistible.
"Would you use it in speaking of me to Mistress Barbara there? No, I'll
give you a name to call me by. You may call me Cydaria."
"Cydaria! A fine name!"
"It is," said she carelessly, "as good as any other."
"But is there no other to follow it?"
"When did a poet ask two names to head his sonnet? And surely you
wanted mine for a sonnet?"
"So be it, Cydaria," said I.
"So be it, Simon. And is not Cydaria as pretty as Barbaria?"
"It has a strange sound," said I, "but it's well enough."
"And now--the nosegay!"
"I must pay a reckoning for this," I sighed; but since a bargain is a
bargain I gave her the nosegay.
She took it, her face all alight with smiles, and buried her nose in it. I
stood looking at her, caught by her pretty ways and graceful boldness.
Boy though I was, I had been right in telling her that there are many
ways of beauty; here were two to start with, hers and Barbara's. She
looked up and, finding my gaze on her, made a little grimace as though
it were only what she had expected and gave her no more concern than
pleasure. Yet at such a look Barbara would have turned cold and distant
for an hour or more. Cydaria, smiling in scornful indulgence, dropped
me another mocking curtsey, and made as though she would go her
way. Yet she did not go, but stood with her head half-averted, a glance
straying towards me from the corner of her eye, while with her tiny foot

she dug the gravel of the avenue.
"It is a lovely place, this park," said she. "But, indeed, it's often hard to
find the way about it."
I was not backward to take her hint.
"If you had a guide now----" I began.
"Why, yes, if I had a guide, Simon," she whispered gleefully.
"You could find the way, Cydaria, and your guide would be most----"
"Most charitably engaged. But then----" She paused, drooping the
corners of her mouth in sudden despondency.
"But what then?"
"Why then, Mistress Barbara would be alone."
I hesitated. I glanced towards the house. I looked at Cydaria.
"She told me that she wished to be alone," said I.
"No? How did she say it?"
"I will tell you all about that as we go along," said I, and Cydaria
laughed again.
CHAPTER II
THE WAY OF YOUTH
The debate is years old; not indeed quite so old as the world, since
Adam and Eve cannot, for want of opportunity, have fallen out over it,
yet descending to us from unknown antiquity. But it has never been set
at rest by general consent: the quarrel over Passive Obedience is
nothing to it. It seems such a small matter though; for the debate I mean
turns on no greater question than