"What luck?" she cried; and then pettishly, "there, clumsy! you are pulling me into that puddle. Have a care of my new shoes, will you? What luck, did you say? Why, none!"
"What? You have not lost?" I exclaimed, standing still in the road; and it seemed to me that my heart stood still also.
"Yes, all! If you call two guineas all," she replied carelessly. "Why, you are not going to cry for two guineas, baby, are you?"
But I was going to cry and did, breaking down like a child; and that not so much at the thought of the desperate strait to which she had brought me--though this was no other than the felon's dock, with the prospect of disgrace, and to be whipped or burned in the hand, at the best, and if I had my benefit--but at the sudden conviction, which came upon me, perfect and overwhelming, that my mistress, for whom I had risked so much, did not love me! In no other way, and on no other theory, could I explain callousness so complete, thoughtlessness so cruel! Nor did her next words tend to heal the mischief, or give me comfort.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, flouncing from me with impatient contempt, and walking on the other side of the way, "if you are going to be a cry-baby, thank you for nothing! I thought you were a man!" And she began to hum an air.
"My God! I don't think you care!" I sobbed, aghast at her insensibility.
"Care?" she retorted indifferently, swinging her visor in her hand. "For what?"
With a coolness that appalled me, she finished the verse she was humming; then, "Your finger hurts, therefore you are going to die!" she said, with a sneer. "You see the fire and therefore you must be burned. Why, you have the courage of a hen! A flea! A mouse! You are not worthy the name of a man."
"I am man enough to be hanged," I answered miserably.
"Hanged?" quoth she, quite cheerfully. "Do you think that man was ever hanged for three guineas?"
"Then they must have been cravens like you!" she retorted, perfectly well satisfied with her answer. "And spun their own ropes. Come, silly, cheer up! A great many things may happen in a week! And if that vixen is back under a week, I will eat her!"
"A week won't make three guineas," I said dolefully.
"No, but a good heart will," she rejoined. "And not three but thirty! Only," she continued, looking askance at me, "you have not the spirit of a man. You are just Tumbledown Dick, as they say, and as well named as nine-pence!"