"Your mother must be in a bad way about him," said Milly.
"She is. Why, he took mother down to the river last Sunday and showed her a big hole there, where Plym comes over the rocks and the waters all a-boil and twelve feet deep. 'That's where you'll find me, mother,' he says. And she, poor soul, was frightened out of her wits. And father's worried too, for Ned can't go wrong with him. Ned may always do what he likes, though I may not."
Cora declared her sympathy, but Mark did not take the incident as grave.
"You needn't fear," he assured Ned's brother. "Men that talk openly of killing themselves, never do it. Words are a safety-valve. 'Tis the sort that go silent and cheerful under a great blow that be nearest death."
Cora spoke of Ned's looks with admiration and feared that this great disappointment might spoil them; but Milly was not so sympathetic.
"If he stood to work and didn't think so much about the maidens, they might think a bit more about him," she said.
"He swears he won't play St. George now," added Rupert. "He haven't got the heart to go play-acting no more."
"He'll find twenty girls to go philandering after afore winter," foretold Milly. "And if Cora here was to ask him, he'd play St. George fast enough."
"'Twill be a very poor compliment to me if he cries off now," declared Cora. "For I'm to be the princess, and 'tis pretended in the play that he's my true lover."
"Mark will be jealous then. 'Tis a pity he don't play St. George," said Milly.
"A pretty St. George me!" he answered. "No, no; I'm not jealous of Ned. Safety in numbers, they say. Let him be St. George and welcome; and very noble he'll look--if ever he's got brains enough in his empty noddle to get the words and remember them."
Cora cast a swift side glance at her betrothed. She did not speak, but the look was not all love. Discontent haunted her for a little space.
The ginger-beer was drunk and the repast finished. The men lighted their pipes; the girls talked together.
"He's a fine, witty chap, as I've always said. Different to most of us, along of being better eggicated. But that modest and retiring, few people know what a clever man he is."
These things pleased the other, and she was still more pleased when Milly discussed Mark's father.